Kiss it! Abbie Trayler-Smith

Kiss it! is the result of a long-term collaboration between photographer Abbie Trayler-Smith and Shannon, a young woman living with obesity. Over the course of 12-years, Trayler-Smith documented Shannon’s journey from teenager to adult — navigating friendships, family, first-boyfriends, prom nights, holidays and jobs. Shannon has been the central inspiration for Trayler-Smith’s long-term project, ‘The Big O’ examining the issue of obesity in school-age children and young adults.

One in four people in England are obese, and figures from Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales follow a similar pattern—obesity is a bigger killer than tobacco in the UK. Research points to contributing factors of hormones, genes, long commutes, sedentary jobs, yo-yo dieting, sugary treats, and relationships with electronic devices all contributing to this figure. In spite of the complex causes, obesity is still perceived by many to be a failure of will and self-restraint on behalf of the individual—’just eat less and move more’. Against this background, Shannon allowed Trayler-Smith into her life to create this frank and tender portrait which forms the photographer’s first monograph. Collectively, the images portray what it means to be fat when the response is often depersonalised, void of both understanding and the capacity to care.
‘We talk about “people with obesity,” not “obese people;” a phrasing that is more about identity…obesity, like asthma, is something that happens to a person—a disease with many etymologies, not all of them well understood…Embedded in the stigmatization of obesity is the idea that this is something that people have done to themselves; that is not the way to understand it.’ – William Dietz, director of the Stop Obesity Alliance at George Washington University, United States