This BBC radio 4 clip is actually a couple of years old but its still full of interesting discussion.
---
OBESITY
Nowadays obesity is spoken in terms of an epidemic, and according to some scientists in the United States, to stay thin one should eat sensibly, exercise, but also wash their hands. Like SARS, or bird flu or even bubonic plague, obesity is treated as a contagion and evidence is produced to support the assertion.
But is this disease model of obesity, and talk of the Global Obesity Epidemic just the latest in a long line of strategies for shifting responsibility for being over weight away from individuals? And is being fat always a bad thing anyway? Sander L. Gilman is the author of a new book about attitudes towards fat. He joins Laurie Taylor and social anthropologist Henrietta Moore to discuss the cultural history of obesity.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/thinkingallowed/thinkingallowed_20081008.shtml
---
So what do you think about the premise of the obesity epidemic being a strategy to shift responsibility away from the individual?
I actually reckon that the diet-industry constructed obesity epidemic is mostly aimed at individualizing responsibility rather than considering structural factors. The medicalization of obesity allows the commodification of solutions for it after all.
---
OBESITY
Nowadays obesity is spoken in terms of an epidemic, and according to some scientists in the United States, to stay thin one should eat sensibly, exercise, but also wash their hands. Like SARS, or bird flu or even bubonic plague, obesity is treated as a contagion and evidence is produced to support the assertion.
But is this disease model of obesity, and talk of the Global Obesity Epidemic just the latest in a long line of strategies for shifting responsibility for being over weight away from individuals? And is being fat always a bad thing anyway? Sander L. Gilman is the author of a new book about attitudes towards fat. He joins Laurie Taylor and social anthropologist Henrietta Moore to discuss the cultural history of obesity.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/thinkingallowed/thinkingallowed_20081008.shtml
---
So what do you think about the premise of the obesity epidemic being a strategy to shift responsibility away from the individual?
I actually reckon that the diet-industry constructed obesity epidemic is mostly aimed at individualizing responsibility rather than considering structural factors. The medicalization of obesity allows the commodification of solutions for it after all.
