In Biomedicine, Thin Is Still In: Obesity Surveillance among Racialized, (Im)migrant, and Female Bodies

Iffath Unissa Syed
Additional contact information
Iffath Unissa Syed: School of Health Policy and Management, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada

Societies, 2019, vol. 9, issue 3, 1-14

Abstract: Currently there is a plethora of research literature which constructs obesity as an alarming new global pandemic associated with a multitude of acute and chronic diseases rooted in lifestyle factors. Although most of these claims related to obesity are well accepted in the research community, some challenges remain. For instance, lifestyle factors only partially explain the risks of developing obesity. In this paper, I have advocated for greater caution in interpreting some of the medical claims of obesity due to the epistemological and methodological assumptions that inform certain groups of obesity researchers. While most of the literature has reported lifestyle factors and behavior modification as the major mechanisms to achieving health and wellbeing, a few scholars have raised issues about structural factors.

Keywords: feminist political economy; racialized bodies; obese other; public health; social determinants of health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 A14 P P0 P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/9/3/59/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/9/3/59/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:9:y:2019:i:3:p:59-:d:258078

Access Statistics for this article

Societies is currently edited by Ms. Farrah Sun

More articles in Societies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().