Obesity and sexuality in adolescence: an interdisciplinary view within the healthcare field

Abstract

Adolescence is a period of great growth and development in which nutritional issues acquire enormous importance, not only due to the increased need for nutrients, but also due to the rapid change in self-image. Thus, adolescents are called upon to re-appropriate a transformed body image, but their bodies do not fit into a pure and simple reference to need, pleasure or reality, and are entirely subject to the complications of the psyche. During this period, nutritional disorders are common, compromise health and have been growing at alarming rates throughout the world, including in Brazil. Overweight and obesity have serious organic and psychological repercussions for individuals, since food goes beyond the simple instinctive satisfaction of a need, that is, of pure biological hunger. What they eat and their bodies are privileged means by which adolescents show us their sexual impasses. By articulating the fields of medicine, history, art and psychoanalysis, this article aims to investigate the issue of obesity/sexuality in adolescence, distinguishing it from an organicist and timeless naturalism.