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The Obesity Epidemic: Science, Morality and Ideology
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 614.59398
EAN: 9780415318969
Edition: 1
ISBN: 0415318963
Label: Routledge
Manufacturer: Routledge
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 218
Publication Date: June 13, 2005
Publisher: Routledge
Studio: Routledge
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Editorial Review:
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 Rating: 
Rating: - 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 ... Read More
Rating: - 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 ... Read More
Rating:  - 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 ... Read More
Rating:  - 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. ... Read More
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