Human Sexuality and Obesity

Abstract

In today's healthand fashion-conscious Western world, being overweight bears a heavy social stigma with many adverse consequences. Despite the emphasis on thinness and the proliferation of health fitness centers and gyms, the American population continues to increase in body mass [1]. New standards for normal body weight have increased by 10%15%, according to the generally accepted Metropolitan Life weight-statistics tables. The clothing industry has responded by increasing the production of large-size clothing; these clothes are now generally available in both department stores and specialty shops. Marketing, however, continues to emphasize thinness. Advertisements tend to promote the anorectic thinness of the 1980s and the muscular thinness of the 1990s as the desired norm. Dieting has an important place in American culture. Grocery shelves overflow with nonfat, low-fat, no-cholesterol, reduced-caloric items. Treatment of obesity is a multibillion-dollar industry that includes not only legitimate medical practice and prescribed drugs but also a multitude of over-the-counter anorectics and weight-reduction aids, plus fed diets and mail-order products that promise to melt away pounds and inches overnight. The public, men as well as women, voraciously eat up these miracle cures that assure sexually attractive new bodies and greater social success. The etiology of obesity is somewhat elusive. Early medical research emphasized the importance of psychological theories of obesity, focusing on personality characteristics and intrapsychic conflict Obese per-