Description
Book SynopsisIn a world now filled with more people who are overweight than underweight, public health and medical perspectives paint obesity as a catastrophic epidemic that threatens to overwhelm health systems and undermine life expectancies globally. In many societies, being obese also creates profound personal suffering because it is so culturally stigmatized. Yet despite loud messages about the health and social costs of being obese, weight gain is a seemingly universal aspect of the modern human condition. Grounded in a holistic anthropological approach and using a range of ethnographic and ecological case studies, Obesity shows that the human tendency to become and stay fat makes perfect sense in terms of evolved human inclinations and the physical and social realities of modern life. Drawing on her own fieldwork in the rural United States, Mexico, and the Pacific Islands over the last two decades, Alexandra A. Brewis addresses such critical questions as why obesity is defined as a problem
Trade Review"Around the globe, there are more overweight than underweight people, and trends indicate that obesity is reaching epidemic toward pandemic proportions. Drawing on extensive original research, integrating previous scholarship, and using a bio-cultural perspective, Brewis offers a wide-ranging exploration of obesity as a contemporary public health and social issue. Highly recommended." * Choice *
"Brewis provides a much-needed and insightful analysis of the current obesity 'epidemic' and the role that culture plays in the causes and consequences of having a fat body. Brewis provides a great resource for teaching about a seemingly intractable issue in public health nutrition." -- Andrea Wiley * Indiana University, Bloomington *
"This book provides the reader with a unique opportunity to examine obesity through cultural lenses."
* Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences *
"
Obesity is well written in a clear and jargon-free style. Brewis's expertise in this are shines through and I learned many new things about something I have been studying closely for over a decade."
-- John Speakman * American Journal of Human Biology *
Table of ContentsList of Figures
List of Tables
Preface
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction: The Problem of Obesity
2 Defining Obesioty
3 Obesity and Human Adaptation
4 The Distribution of Risk
5 Culture and Body Ideals
6 Big-Body Symbolism, Meanings, and Norms
7 Conclusion: The Big Picture
Appendix A: Global Rates of Overweight and Obesity
Appendix B: Body Mass Index Tables
Appendix C: Tools for the Comparative Study of Body Image
Appendix D: Using Cultural Consensus Alaysis to Understand Obesity Norms
References
Index
