Full Description
In the crowded and busy arena of obesity and fat studies, there is a lack of attention to the lived experiences of people, how and why they eat what they do, and how people in cross-cultural settings understand risk, health, and bodies. This volume addresses the lacuna by drawing on ethnographic methods and analytical emic explorations in order to consider the impact of cultural difference, embodiment, and local knowledge on understanding obesity. It is through this reconstruction of how obesity and fatness are studied and understood that a new discussion will be introduced and a new set of analytical explorations about obesity research and the effectiveness of obesity interventions will be established.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Dedication
Introduction: Re-Constructing Obesity
Megan B. McCullough and Jessica A. Hardin
Part I: Naturalizing Measures and Universalizing Effects
Chapter 1. Resocializing Body Weight, Obesity and Health Agency
Anne E. Becker
Chapter 2. The Mismeasure of Obesity
Emily Yates-Doerr
Chapter 3. 'Diabesity' and the stigmatizing of lifestyle in Australia
Darlene McNaughton
Part II: Cross-Cultural Body Discourses and Unstable Categories
Chapter 4. Obesity in Cuba: Memories of the Special Period and Approaches to Weight Loss Today
Hanna Garth
Chapter 5. Fasting for Health, Fasting for God: Samoan Evangelical Christian Responses to Obesity and Chronic Disease
Jessica A. Hardin
Part III: Fat Etiologies and Conflicting Interventions
Chapter 6. Perspectives on Diabetes and Obesity from an Anthropologist in Behavioral Medicine
Rochelle Rosen
Chapter 7. Body Image and Weight Concerns among Emirati Women in the United Arab Emirates
Sarah Trainer
Chapter 8. 'Not Neutral Ground': Exploring School as a Site for Childhood Obesity Intervention and Prevention Programs
Tracey Galloway and Tina Moffat
Part IV: Cultures of Practice
Chapter 9. An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Ton of Controversy: Exploring Tensions in the Fields of Obesity and Eating Disorder Prevention
Lisa R. Rubin and Jessica A. Joseph
Chapter 10. Fat and Knocked-Up: An Embodied Analysis of Stigma, Visibility, and Invisibility in the Biomedical Management of an Obese Pregnancy
Megan B. McCullough
Afterword
Stephen McGarvey
Index
