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| View Larger Image | The Obesity Epidemic: Science, Morality and Ideology
by Michael Gard
| | List Price: | $47.95 | | Price: | $43.15 | | You Save: | $4.80 (10%) |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 810519 | | Studio: | Routledge | | | Binding: | Paperback | | Number Of Pages: | 218 | | Publication Date: | June 13, 2005 | | Publisher: | Routledge |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
The Obesity Epidemic adds a much-needed voice of skepticism to the increasingly alarmist debate about weight and health. Gard and Wright show that "obesity" is above all a deeply problematic cultural and political concept, making clear that the social meaning of fat is determined largely by moral and ideological agendas -- agendas that are all the more powerful because they cloak themselves in the mantle of objective science and public health. Indeed, this book demonstrates how and why concepts such as "science" and "health" are themselves far more problematic than those who invoke them like to admit. THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC is a superb contribution to the sociology of knowledge, and an essential text for anyone who wants to understand the current moral panic over fat. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 4 reviews)
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Great starting point for researching weight hysteria, little on physiology 
The book is a fairly dense read wherein the authors endlessly cite research on weight and activity-levels. I think one of the best points they make is how we really cannot conclude, from the evidence they cite, that our bodies are machines where an alegebra of energy-in/energy-out explains our weight. Indeed, the diversity of individual reactions to exercise and food makes it difficult to say exactly what "program" should be advocated. They also draw interesting parallels between moralizing over weight and simply citing statistics that support this value judgment that fat is bad. However, it is true that one wishes for more explanation of how we understand, if not yet fully, human physiology, digestion, etc. which would, to laypeople like myself, seem critical to understanding how weight and health are interlinked.
February 03, 2008 | |
Healthy skepticism perhaps overdone
The whole effort to counter the hysteria over overweight makes a certain sense. The revealing of how problematic categories for defining 'overweight' are is also important.
I am not sure however that their discounting of scientific approaches to weight- loss is correct.
Nor am I sure that their placing a great part of the burden on socio-economic factors is the correct direction for the society to take. And this when there is obviously a real difference between the thinner, wealthier population and the heavier, poorer population.
But is there any doubt whatsoever tht being overweight is a major factor in the epidemic of Type 2 Diabetes which the world, and not only the Western world is experiencing.
Is there too any doubt that being significantly overweight is a major risk factor in heart disease and stroke?
Is there any question that arthritic and joint illnesses are aggravated by overweight?
It is one thing to point to the hysteria and exaggerations, and another to go all the way to the other side and poo- poo the public health danger, and individual danger of being overweight.
November 16, 2006 | |
Questionable Logic 
"The Obesity Epidemic, Science, Morality and Ideology" is not light reading. The authors, university physical educators in Australia, have packed an enormous amount of research and thought into this volume. Their premises are:
1. The obesity epidemic has been hyped and blown out of proportion,
2. Scientific uncertainties have been papered over with unsupported assumptions.
3. The rush to `fix' the epidemic is likely to lead to policies which are unwise, unnecessary, wasteful and possibly counter-productive.
The authors state, "In short, the first danger that this book addresses is that talk of an `obesity epidemic' has the potential to do more harm than good." The second danger they address is that the public, journalists, scientists and other authors offer misguided explanations for the obesity epidemic. Their final and key point is that,"a scientific approach to the human body has not led, and is unlikely to lead, to more satisfactory ways of thinking about overweight and obesity." They give three reasons for this conclusion. First, "the science of overweight, obesity, health and the mediating role of exercise and diet are severely mired in controversy and contradiction...Second, it seems optimistic to suggest that the populace is on the verge of dispensing with their superstitions, fears and prejudices about body weight in favor of a more `mechanistic' or `scientific' way of thinking...Third, it is not at all clear how a more `mechanistic' or `scientific' view of weight and obesity would be a good thing." The following, dense nearly two hundred pages are written in support of their theses.
It isn't hard to find researchers who offer global prescriptions to control body weight; it isn't hard to find press accounts which hype this or that discovery or new information and it isn't hard to find dubious or misguided policy prescriptions. But the authors' real target is science itself. They feel that overweight and obesity just can't be viewed as a science at all and that biology, physics, have not been helpful and will not be helpful in the future. A big part of their gripe is the energy in/energy out formula just doesn't seem to work consistently in obesity studies.
In fact, a number of the authors' insights and observations should cause some serious thinking. But it is curious to note that, although the authors are university professors and although they must cite close to a thousand studies, there is not, as I can read it, one reference to the discovery of leptin, much less the influences of the host of neuropeptides, hormones and other neuroendocrine effects of adipose tissue. One must ask, "In all this research, did they never come across the information about grehlin, PYY 3-36, and other such influencers? If they did come across them, why not reference all that is going on? Where is any analysis, or even mention, of the effects of bariatric surgery on the understanding of the disease process we call obesity?
The authors argue that because science has not solved the complexities of body weight regulation today it never will. And furthermore, that even if it could, people's thinking about body weight would never change. Surely, this is too rigid thinking. It is like saying that because physics has not come up with a grand unifying theory today, all physics research is useless and it won't make any progress in the future. Or that because we can't cure Parksinson's disease now, we never will. This is unacceptable on its face. Also untrue is that people's perceptions and actions do not change. In the days before Prozac, depression was poorly understood and treated; after Prozac the public, health care professionals and others came to see that at least some depression was a neurochemical imbalance. The sudden swings in the public's eating habits, such as the low-carb phenomenon, is further testament to the power of the public to seek out and employ hopeful approaches to weight control.
If science cannot get us where we want to go, what can we do? The authors have two, very brief suggestions. First, we could just `get over' it (their words). Simply accept overweight and obesity and move on to something else. Second, and more interesting is their suggestion that what is needed is a "thorough engagement with issues such as economic disadvantage, the workings of capitalism, increasingly deregulated labour markets and the imperative for companies, particularly, but not only, those that sell food to be profitable." As they so well acknowledge, "This would mean that the fields of science, medicine and health developing and articulating positions that are overtly moral and ideological, a project which would mean changing the very nature of science itself."
These conclusions comprise the last paragraph of the book. It might have behooved the authors to spend a little more time discussing how capitalism causes obesity or the effects of labor market regulation but it seems like these were mere afterthoughts. Having led the reader to conclude that science is a dead end, the authors have no where to go. Other of us might be much more sanguine about the prospects that the science of obesity is developing at a rapid pace and if there is a lot of `noise' in the system because of different studies and interpretations, this is a good thing. A robust scientific enterprise is the only alternative which can give the public and policy makers accurate information to address the significant challenge which is obesity. Morgan Downey, Executive Director, American Obesity Association
December 29, 2005 | |
The politics of fat 
A sceptical look, by two Australians, at what we know and
(more especially) at what we don't know, about obesity. The authors believe "It ain't what folks don't know is the problem so much as what they think they know that ain't so." The central message could be phrased as that fatness doesn't matter as much as they try to make you think, but that would be oversimplifying it. There's nothing simple about this book. I started it thinking I knew a lot more about obesity than when I finished it.
The authors write elegantly with sharp wit, but even so it is rather heavy going because of the density of information and closely reasoned argument. Although it is an important book it it difficult to know who to recommend it too, maybe anybody in the health or education field who enjoys good writing and doesn't mind having their assumptions shaken.. It's not a self-help book for dieters.
The Australian perspective is interesting. Americans are still reeling from finding they are the world's fattest men (apart from some Pacific islanders) and the British are upset from finding that they are the least athletic white nation, with curling as their only Olympic gold. The skinny athletic Australians have managed to convince themselves that they are slothful overeaters
May 28, 2005 | |
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