A tension between free will and determinism shapes narratives of type 2 diabetes and obesity, contributing to stigma and defining how these conditions are culturally understood.
This research involved an interdisciplinary analysis drawing on philosophy, narrative theory and illness narrative scholarship. It undertakes close readings of two remission memoirs—William Banting’s Letter on Corpulence (1863) and Tom Watson’s Downsizing (2020)—in dialogue with Augustine’s redemptive and conversion narrative, Confessions.
Discourses of metabolic illness oscillate between models of personal responsibility and biological determinism. Subjects are both blamed and rendered passive. In contrast, Banting’s and Watson’s remission memoirs mobilise a redemptive narrative form structured by deficiency, transformation and renewal. The two texts, written a century and a half apart, assert the authors’ agency while positioning them as generative people who seek to transform others. They contest dominant biomedical and institutional narratives that marginalise patient voice and prioritise clinical authority.
This article links two memoirs of metabolic illness to a tradition of redemptive story-telling, asking for a rethinking of agency, responsibility and transformation regarding type 2 diabetes. There are implications for both clinical practice and cultural understanding.