What's Wrong With Fat? (37 page)

18. Bordo,
Unbearable Weight
; Peter N. Stearns,
Fat History: Bodies and Beauty in the
Modern West
(New York: New York University Press, 1997).

19. Dalton Conley and Rebecca Glauber, “Gender, Body Mass, and Economic Status:
New Evidence from the PSID,”
Advances in Health Economics and Health Services
Research
17 (2007): 253–75.

20. Michael Fumento, Fat of the Land: Our Health Crisis and How Overweight
Americans Can Help Themselves (New York: Penguin Books, 1998), 27.

21. Glenn Gaesser,
Big Fat Lies: Th
e Truth about Your Weight and Your Health
(Carlsbad,
CA: Gurze Books, 2002).

22. Fumento,
Fat of the Land
, 119.

23. Linda Bacon, “Reflections on Fat Acceptance: Lessons Learned from Privilege,”
paper presented at the annual meetings of the National Association to Advance
Fat Acceptance, Washington, DC, August 1, 2009), 10.

24. Abigail C. Saguy and Kevin W. Riley, “Weighing Both Sides: Morality, Mortality
and Framing Contests over Obesity,”
Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law
30,
no. 5 (2005): 869–921.

25. Sandra Harding,
Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1991).

26. Ibid., 146–47.

27. Ibid., 150.

28. P. Ernsberger et al., “Consequences of Weight Cycling in Obese Spontaneously
Hypertensive Rats,”
American Journal of Physiology
270, no. 4 (1996).

29. P. Ernsberger, “Surgery Risks Outweigh Its Benefits,”
Obesity & Health
(March/
April 1991): 24–25.

30. P. Ernsberger and R. J. Koletsky, “Weight Cycling and Mortality: Support from
Animal Studies,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
(
JAMA
) 269 (1993):
1116 ; Ernsberger et al., “Consequences of Weight Cycling in Obese Spontaneously
Hypertensive Rats”; P. Ernsberger and D. O. Nelson, “Refeeding Hypertension in
Dietary Obesity,”
American Journal of Physiology
254, no. 1 (1998): R47–R55.

31. Bacon, “Reflections on Fat Acceptance,” 4.

32. The obesity researchers I interviewed did not talk about how their own body size
shaped their research, perhaps because they feared this would undermine their
scientific credibility. It is a question, however, that merits further inquiry. In some
cases, researchers are themselves very thin, and their concern over body weight at
a collective level may be an extension of related concerns at an individual level.
Kelly Brownell’s weight has fluctuated between the “overweight” and “morbidly
obese” category. While Brownell himself did not speak of how his own body size
has shaped his research, if at all, one could speculate that it might have sensitized
him to both weight-based stigma and environmental contributors to weight
gain.

33. Joan B. Wolf,
Is Breast Best? Taking on the Breastfeeding Experts and the New High
Stakes of Motherhood
(New York: New York University Press, 2010), 115.

34. In the terms of field theory, they are trying to change the rules of the game in the
fat field.

35. Marilyn Wann, “Foreward,” in
Th
e Fat Studies Reader
, ed. Esther Rothblum and
Sondra Solovay (New York: New York University Press, 2009), x.

36. See Charlotte Cooper, “Fat Studies: Mapping the Field,”
Sociology Compass
4, no.
12 (2010): 1220–34.

37. This is an interesting example of how specific players (including individual people,
institutions, groups, and so on) can create a smaller subfield that values the
specific form of social capital they possess, in order have a better standing in the
overall field.

38. Stearns,
Fat History
, 59–60.

39. Robert Aronowitz, “Framing Disease: An Underappreciated Mechanism for the
Social Patterning of Health,”
Social Science & Medicine
67, no. 1 (2008): 1–9.
Stearns,
Fat History
.

40. Sabrina Strings, “Thin, White, and Saved: Fat Stigma and the Fear of the Big Black
Body” (unpublished manuscript, University of California, San Diego, 2012).

41. Bordo,
Unbearable Weight
; Wolf,
Th
e Beauty Myth
.

42. Stearns,
Fat History
, 59–60.

43. Ibid.

44. Lynn Gerber,
Seeking the Straight and Narrow
(Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2011), 39.

45. Stearns,
Fat History
.

46. Sharlene Hesse-Biber,
Am I Th
in Enough Yet? Th
e Cult of Th
inness and the
Commercialization of Identity
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1996) ; Bordo,
Unbearable Weight
.

47. Michael Lasalandra, “Doctors Say Losing Weight Is Emphasized Too Heavily,”
Boston Herald,
January 1, 1998.

48. Fumento,
Fat of the Land
, 130.

49. Gerber,
Seeking the Straight and Narrow
.

50. Sobal, “The Medicalization and Demedicalization of Obesity,” 69.

51. Ibid.

52. See also Amy Erdman Farrell,
Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American
Culture
(New York: New York University Press, 2011).

53. World Health Organization, “Physical Status: The Use and Interpretation of
Anthropometry,” in
WHO Techincal Report Series No.
854 (1995), 274.

54. Stearns,
Fat History
.

55. Sobal, “The Medicalization and Demedicalization of Obesity”; National Institutes
of Health, “Health Implications of Obesity,”
Annals of Internal Medicine
103 (1985):
1073–77.

56. Meika Loe,
Th
e Rise of Viagra: How the Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in America
(New
York: New York University Press, 2004) ; Marcia Angell,
Th
e Truth about the Drug
Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do about It
(New York: Random
House, 2004).

57. The Biggest Loser Couples week 3, http://www.nbc.com/the-biggest-loser/video/
week-3/1270402 (accessed March 4, 2011).

58. Ross A. Hammond and Ruth Levine, “The Economic Impact of Obesity in the
United States,”
Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity: Targets and Therapy
3 (2010): 285–95.

59. Charles Rosenberg,
Explaining Epidemics and Other Studies in the History of Medicine
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 279
.
Saguy and Riley,
“Weighing Both Sides.”

60. Lennard J. Davis, “Obsession: Against Mental Health,” in
Against Health: How
Health Became the New Morality
, ed. Jonathan M. Metzl and Anna Kirkland (New
York: New York University Press, 2010), 129.

61. Rosenberg,
Explaining Epidemics and Other Studies in the History of Medicine
, 278–

79; Saguy and Riley, “Weighing Both Sides.”

62. See also Oliver,
Fat Politics
.

63. Elise Paradis and Kuper Ayelet, “An Epidemic of Epidemics? The Evolution of the
Phrase ‘Epidemic’ in the Medical Literature, 1980–2010” (unpublished manu
script, 2011).

64. Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler, “The Spread of Obesity in a Large
Social Network over 32 Years,”
New England Journal of Medicine
357, no. 4 (2007):
370–79
;
Richard L. Atkinson, “Viruses as Etiology of Obesity,”
Mayo Clinic
Proceedings
82, no. 10 (2007): 1192–98.

65. Oliver,
Fat Politics
.

66. Ibid., 40.

67. Katherine M. Flegal et al., “Prevalence and Trends in Obesity among U.S. Adults,
1999–2008,”
JAMA
303, no. 3 (2010): 235–41
;
Katherine M. Flegal et al.,
“Prevalence of Obesity and Trends in the Distribution of Body Mass Index among
US Adults, 1999–2010,”
JAMA
307, no. 5 (2012): 491–97.

68. Gina Kolata, “So Big and Healthy Grandpa Wouldn’t Even Know You,”
New York
Times,
July 30, 2006.

69. Ibid.

70. International Association for the Study of Obesity, “IOTF History,” IASO, http://
www.iaso.org/policy/iotfhistory/.

71. Oliver,
Fat Politics
, 28. Ray Moynihan, “Obesity Task Force Linked to WHO Takes
‘Millions’ from Drug Firms,”
BMJ
332, no. 7555 (2006): 1412 ; Linda Bacon,
Health
at Every Size: Th
e Surprising Truth about Your Weight
(Dallas: BenBella Books, 2010).

72. IASO, “IOTF History.”

73. World Health Organization, “Physical Status,” 312. It did, however, use BMI cut-
off s to establish three grades of “over
weight
” among adults, including “grade 1
overweight” as 25–29.99, “grade 2 overweight” as BMI 30–39.99, and “grade 3 over
weight” as BMI 40 or more.

74. World Health Organization, “Obesity: Preventing and Managing the Global
Epidemic”
WHO Techincal Report Series No.
894 (2000), 241, http://libdoc.who
.int/trs/WHO_TRS_894.pdf.

75. Neville Rigby and Philip James, “Waiting for a Green Light for Health? Europe at
the Crossroads for Diet and Disease,”
IOTF Position Paper
(2003), http://www
.iaso.org/site_media/uploads/September_2003_Obesity_in_Europe_2_Waiting_
for_the_green_light_for_health.pdf.

76. Tim J. Cole et al., “Establishing a Standard Definition for Child Overweight and
Obesity Worldwide: International Survey,”
BMJ
320 (2000): 1–6 ; Mary C. Bellizzfiand William H. Dietz, “Workshop on Childhood Obesity: Summary of the
Discussion,”
American Jouranl of Nutrition
70, no. 1 (1999): 1735–55.

77. IASO, “IOTF History.”

78. Roche, “ObEpi: Enquê te épidémiologique nationale sur le surpoids et l’obésite,”
ed. INSERM, TNS Healthcare (Kantarhealth) and Roche (2009), http://www
.roche.fr/fmfiles/re7199006/cms2_cahiers_obesite/AttachedFile_10160.pdf.

79. Ian Hacking, “Kinds of People: Moving Targets,”
Proceedings of the British Academy
151 (2007): 285–318 ; Davis, “Obsession.”

80. Oliver,
Fat Politics
; Sally Squires, “Optimal Weight Threshold Lowered: Millions
More to Be Termed Overweight,”
Washington Post
, June 4, 1998.

81. World Health Organization, International Assocation for the Study of Obesity,
and International Obesity Task Force, “The Asia-Pacific Perspective: Redefining
Obesity and Its Treatment,” (2000), 18; http://www.wpro.who.int/nutrition/doc
uments/docs/Redefiningobesity.pdf.

82. World Health Organization Expert Consultation, “Appropriate Body-Mass Index
for Asian Populations and Its Implications for Policy and Intervention Strategies,”
Lancet
363, no. 9412 (2004): 902.

83. Carl Elliot, “Pharmaceutical Propaganda,” in
Against Health
(see note 57); Ray
Moynihan and Alan Cassels,
Selling Sickness: How the World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical
Companies Are Turning Us All into Patients
(Jackson, TN: Avalon Publishing Group,
2005).

84. Elliot, “Pharmaceutical Propaganda,” 95.

85. Moynihan and Cassels,
Selling Sickness
.

86. Elliot, “Pharmaceutical Propaganda.”

87. Oliver,
Fat Politics
.

88. Allen M. Spiegel and Elizabeth G. Nabel, “NIH Research on Obesity and Type 2
Diabetes: Providing the Scientific Evidence Base for Actions to Improve Health,”
Nature Medicine
12, no. 1 (2006): 67–69.

89. B. Shanewood, “An Interview with Medical Rights Champion Lynn McAfee,”
Radiance
(Winter 1999),
http://www.radiancemagazine.com/issues/1999/
winter_99/truth.html.

90. Bacon,
Health at Every Size
.

91. Mann et al., “Medicare’s Search for Effective Obesity Treatments”; Gina Kolata,
Rethinking Th
in: Th
e New Science of Weight Loss—and the Myths and Realities about
Dieting
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007) ; Bacon,
Health at Every Size
;
Gaesser,
Big Fat Lies
; Ernsberger, “Surgery Risks Outweigh Its Benefits” ; Ernsberger
and Koletsky, “Weight Cycling and Mortality” ; Ernsberger et al., “Consequences of
Weight Cycling in Obese Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats.”

92. K. M. Flegal et al., “Excess Deaths Associated with Underweight, Overweight, and
Obesity,”
JAMA
293, no. 15 (2005): 1861–67.

93. Paul McAuley et al., “Fitness and Fatness as Mortality Predictors in Healthy Older
Men: The Veterans Exercise Testing Study,”
Journal of Gerontology: MEDICAL
SCIENCES
64A, no. 6 (2009): 695–99 ; Jeptha P. Curtis et al., “The Obesity
Paradox,”
Archives of Internal Medicine
165, no. 1 (2005): 55–61 ; Bonnie Choy et
al., “Relation of Body Mass Index to Sudden Cardiac Death and the Benefit of
Implantable Cardioverter-Deffibrillator in Patients with Left Ventricular
Dysfunction after Healing of Myocardial Infarction,”
American Journal of Cardiology
105, no. 5 (2010): 581 –86.