Gaining Perspective on ObesityObesity: Cultural and Biocultural Perspectives. By Alexandra A. Brewis. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011.

Abstract

During the past decade, obesity has taken center stage as one of the most pressing health problems of the new millennium. Health experts and policy makers have termed the phenomenon of relative rapid weight gain at population levels a “crisis” and an “epidemic.” Public discourses have primarily focused on what causes obesity, either blaming environmental factors—such as the prevalence of cheap, energy-dense, highly processed foods and beverages—or blaming individuals who fail to eat healthfully and engage in regular physical activity. The spread of obesity worldwide is attributed to processes associated with globalization, including mass industrialization, rapid urbanization, and the increasing presence of multinational corporations. Experts predict catastrophic health, economic, and social consequences if the trend toward obesity continues; yet, as Brewis points out in Obesity: Cultural and Biocultural Perspectives, public health interventions, which have historically focused on changing individual behaviors through knowledge and awareness, have been ineffective to date. Brewis delves beneath the surface of obesity-crisis rhetoric to examine adaptive, ecological, and cultural perspectives on obesity; discuss what we can learn from prevention and intervention efforts that have consistently failed; and suggest methods for moving beyond the limitations of statistics and cultural theorizing to better understand the complex, dynamic web of intersections between proximate and distal influences within biological, ecological, and cultural contexts. The author’s research on body image and nutrition, conducted during the past 20 years in the Pacific Islands, the United States, and Mexico, is discussed in conjunction with other similarly focused studies to explore historical and cross-cultural variation in obesity rates, risk, and beliefs about body size. Brewis addresses such critical questions as whether obesity is a disease, an illness, or simply a moral panic; why minority and poor urban populations are most at risk; why obesity remains