Why does our body appearance worry us so much? What is valued socially in it? Is it priced in all environments in the same way? A historical reconstruction allows us to see that the bodies were not always valued the same; After this, the author proposes us to read the presence of a capital linked to the body (an “erotic capital”) as the effect of transformations in the field of health, of the relationship between social classes and of our idea of ​​what are the conditions of an accomplished person.
These transformations allow us to see possibilities of transformation. Because one thing is that we express ourselves as we wish with our body and a very different one that demands are imposed on us and that these, in addition, take us on paths close to pathology. An empirical study on women workers, skilled workers and trades, helps us to have a contemporary map of how erotic capital is connected with eating disorders. An analysis of the existing conflicts allows us to see forms of political mobilization against the most harmful forms of erotic capital.