Obesity is a problem that affects virtually every person on the planet. Everyone knows someone who is overweight or they themselves are overweight. In this research paper we will be looking at the topic of obesity and the social ramifications that it holds. We will first look at obesity in a broad way.
Then we will focus on obesity and its effects on children. And finally, obesity and adulthood will be covered. The topic of obesity is important to the field of sociology because obese people make up a significant portion of the world’s population. In addition, the manner in which obese people are treated has a significant effect on society as a whole. Before going into too much detail, it is first necessary that we have a good understanding of what exactly obesity is and its prominence in society. “Obesity is understood to be a complex disease requiring multi-faceted treatment.
Obesity can contribute to many adverse health outcomes, called co-morbid ities. These include diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease” (Atkinson 1999).
According to the American Medical Association, being obese means that 30% of your ideal body weight is constituted by fat. Obesity is determined by measurement of body fat, not merely body weight. People might be over the weight limit for normal standards, but if they are very muscular with low body fat, they are not obese. Others might be normal or underweight, but still have excessive body fat.
The Term Paper on Obesity: Body Mass Index And Weight
... LIFE EXPECTANCY The first problem of obesity to focus on is the one that many obese people think about the least – ... physical, social and economic problems that occur with obesity. 3. PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS Morbidly obese people often cannot do the things that others ... between being overweight and obese. But,from careful study of the amount of fat in the body at different weights, we now know that ...
Different measurements and factors are used to determine whether or not a person is overweight to the degree that it threatens health. Some of these are body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, waist-hip ratio, and anthropometric’s (Grayson 1998).
Some symptoms of being obese include a body fat percentage greater than thirty percent for women and twenty-five percent for men or weighing more than twenty percent more than your ideal body weight (Simon 2000).
One would need to visit their physician in order to accurately determine their body fat percentage or their ideal weight.
Now that we have a better understanding of what obesity is, we will look at exactly how widespread it is and whom it affects. Being overweight and obesity are serious health problems. “In 1993, obesity was identified as a key contributor to at least 300, 000 deaths each year in America,” according to former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Health, J. Michael McGinnis, MD, and the former Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), William Forge (Klein 2000).
More than half of American adults 20 years old or older are overweight or obese. Overweight and obesity are especially prevalent in some minority groups in addition to those with lower incomes and less education. An estimated 97 million adults in the United States are overweight or obese (Klein 2000).
“‘Affecting one in five Americans – or more than 22 percent of the U.
S. population – obesity is one of the most pervasive health problems in our nation right now,’ said George L. Blackburn, M. D.
, Ph. D. , associate professor of surgery and associate director of the Division of Nutrition at Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. ‘We need to implement steps to slow the progression of this national epidemic” (NAASO 1999).
But the problem of obesity does not only affect the United States. ‘We now know that the growing prevalence of obesity is creating major health problems worldwide,’ said Dr.
James O. Hill, president of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity (NAASO) and Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. Obesity was once regarded as unique to Americans, but it is now seen as a global health risk affecting developing and underdeveloped countries (AOA 2000).
The Essay on Obesity And Overweight Among American Adolescents And Children
The problem of rapid increase of obesity among children and adolescents in the United States has recently become one of the most discussed topics and is considered as a population threat. According to the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion about 9 million young people face possible type 2 diabetes, previously considered an adult disease, high cholesterol level and ...
Obesity is increasing at an epidemic rate in the United States – 1.
3% a year for women over 20. Rates of obesity among minority populations, including African-Americans and Hispanic Americans are especially high (AOA 2000).
There is also a marked increase in obesity among children. The early years of a person’s life are arguably the most important part of a person’s life. The majority of critical development occurs during the childhood and adolescent years. If there is a factor or factors present that would ostracize a person from their peers, then there is a much higher risk of said person not developing correctly.
Obesity can and does act in this way. Fat children are constantly barraged with the pressure to become thin during the time that they are most concerned with fitting in wit their peers. People seem to think it necessary to offer their judgment and advice to fat children. Fat children are often berated with insults from strangers. It is as though people think that because they are fat that they have no feelings.
When obese kids are not dealing with the insults and nasty looks of strangers and classmates, they have to manage the “friendly fire” from well meaning families, peers and teachers. For example;” Birthdays were not usually a big deal in my family, but this one was different. I knew it would be good. I was about to turn sixteen.
I had been looking forward to it for months, hoping my parents would give me a bike or a puppy. When I saw my present, I was crushed. They gave me a Weight Watchers cookbook and a scale. It was devastating to me.” Years later, when I was in college, my mother acknowledged how terrible it had made me feel. She explained to me that, at the time, she was very depressed about my weight.
I was getting fatter and she did not know what to do. The irony is that I was in the best shape of my life then. I could run two miles. At sixteen I was 5’4″, weighed 145 pounds and had a 32-inch waist” (Solovay 2000, 31).
The Essay on Adopting Children by Same Sex Parent
People in society say that everyone is equal, they have equal right and freedom. However in case of adopting children, people believe that same sex parents are abnormal to adopting children. Some people in society against them to adopting but there are many same sex couples who are seeking to adopt children. The researcher of homosexuality found that many people still do not reveal their sexual ...
Sometimes it is the people that are closest to a person that hurt them the most. The medical profession focuses heavily on the elimination of fat despite the fact that numerous studies have shown that weight-loss efforts during childhood are largely unsuccessful and can be harmful both physically and psychologically (Solovay 200, 38).
Children often replace their childhood goals with the improbable aim of lasting weight loss. Success rates for childhood dieting with long lasting weight loss have been determined to be around two to five percent (Solovay 2000, 38).
Parents are often urged by medical professionals to put their children on low-calorie or very low-calorie diets with the good intention of long lasting weight loss. Unfortunately reduced calorie diets often open the gateway to disordered eating. Altering metabolism and affecting normal satiety signals are common repercussions of childhood dieting (Solovay 2000, 39).
According to Bill Fabre y, founder of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, “Surveys reveal that children as young as the fourth grade are dieting, and are developing eating disorders. Yet public health statistics tell us there is an ever-increasing proportion of fat kids in the population, despite well-intentioned efforts by millions of parents to encourage weight loss in their offspring. Obviously diets, medications, and weight loss camps… have not resulted in slimmer teenagers… The solution advocated by many educators: work harder at the same methods that failed in the past!” (Solovay 2000, 39).
Doctors and nutritionists are starting to question why children should diet at all.
Patricia Crawford, co-director of the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Weight and Health, states, “Overweight children do not experience the extent of medical complications of obesity which are experienced by obese adults… Weight loss is inappropriate for children before thy have completed puberty… The need to equip the child with skills to cope with stressful situations and develop self-esteem is often overlooked” (Solovay 2000, 39).
The New England Journal of Medicine’s New Year’s editorial says, “As common efforts to lose weight are in the general population, they are virtually ubiquitous among adolescent girls and young women… Although many girls caught up in these practices [bizarre, severe diets and anorexic and bulimic behaviors] are well aware of the hazards, they would rather risk death than fall short in their attempts to attain the contemporary esthetic ideal of extreme thinness” (Solovay 2000, 39-40).
The Essay on Child Abuse Abusive Parent
Each year in the USA there are approximately one million reports of child maltreatment, about 25% relate to physical abuse and about 1000 children die of maltreatment each year (US Department of Health and Human Services 1999). During the past few decades, researchers have aimed at detecting the children, who are at high risk of becoming victims of abuse, so that appropriate interventions can be ...
The fact that the children do not receive the proper support at home does not help matters either.
Whether the parents are fat or thin, children are often made to feel horrible about their being overweight. One might think that if a fat child had fat parents, then the parents would be more sympathetic about the child’s plight, but, more often than not, this is not the case. Fat adults often pass on to their children their own internalized self-hatred that has developed after years of unsuccessful dieting (Solovay 2000, 40).
Children who are members of minority groups often feel a sense of pride or acceptance from their parents and community, but fat children tend not to share those benefits and are many times blamed for their condition by their loved ones (Solovay 2000, 40).
Author Charlotte Cooper describes a family member’s reaction to her nephew, “At a recent birthday gathering on of the older relatives commented disparagingly, ‘No wonder he’s so big, shoveling that food away.’ Sam is one year old, he has only learnt to walk, and already the obsession is starting” (Solovay 2000, 40).
Also, it has been noted in a study done by Hammarlund et al, that poor family functioning and parental control are risk factors contributing to childhood obesity. Fat parents may be desperate to make their children slim to avoid the harassment and lost opportunities that they learned about firsthand. Parents who have not reeducated themselves stand to harm their children (Solovay 2000, 40).
Those who have not been able to come to terms with their own disordered eating can put a great amount of pressure on their children while setting an unhealthy example (Solovay 2000, 40).
In households facing a weight crisis, fat family members can become weapons. For example, a fat woman was constantly warned not to eat by her thin parents because she would “end up looking like Aunt Kaye” (Solovay 2000, 41).
The Essay on Children and the Single Parent
Single parenting begins with the divorce of a couple who have children. Approximately ninety percent of all minor children live primarily with their mothers. Non custodial fathers usually have less than biweekly contact with their children, and involvement usually declines as time goes by. Since most single-parent households are mother-headed, and have only one income, often below that of a man. ...
This common behavior not only has a negative impact on the child, it also devalues the fat family member (Solovay 2000, 41).
Well-meaning parents often annihilate their child’s self-esteem while trying to help them lose weight. The diets of the entire family often revolve around the fat child. All sweetened cereals, candy, desserts and other foods high in calories and fat are gotten rid of. While this isn’t entirely a bad thing, it often leads to resentment from the fat child and their siblings and can create unnecessary problems in the household (Solovay 2000, 41-42).
Families showing a distinct preoccupation with their child’s obesity often results in progressive obesity and poor adjustment psychologically (Daniel 1982, 115).
Disturbances in family relations, such as this, are often characterized by poor sociability among family members and excessive fighting among siblings (Daniel 1982, 115).
When a child’s diet is so strictly regulated, the child will frequently attempt to sneak food that they know their parents would not approve of. Joanne Ikeda states, “Therapists working with children whose food intake is restricted often find that these children are begging, scavenging, and even stealing food because of their fear of hunger” (Solovay 2000, 42).
Unlike racial minority children and other appearance-impaired children, home is rarely a safe place to go for the obese child. There is rarely a place where overweight children can go where they can receive unconditional support and acceptance.
One woman recalls, “My father, a world-renowned doctor, quipped that he wished I would ‘catch anorexia’ and then took it to the next level when I was older by stating flat out, ‘I’m ashamed to be seen with you.’ He thought this would help me. He thought the pain would be so intense that I would stop eating. It made me seek comfort and of course, I ate more” (Solovay 2000, 42).
If an overweight child cannot get unconditional support from their own parents, where are they supposed to turn? Unfortunately, most of them turn to food to provide the comfort that their parents are not giving them. The environment outside the home is not exactly a pleasant one for obese children either. Fat children growing up in this culture will be singled out as the subject of many stigmatizing experiences based on their size and shape (Solovay 2000, 43).
The Essay on The Effects of Bullying an Obese Child
Studies have shown that bullying or trying to humiliate overweight children into losing weight can lead to emotional difficulties (Levey, 2003). The emotional difficulties can range from anxiety and depression to low self-esteem; which can snowball into more serious problems like anorexia and bulimia or worst case scenario, suicide. Having a positive reinforcement from parents can help a child not ...
One of the most common and most accepted forms of this behavior is teasing. “Larger children are often teased or called names. Put-downs that refer to a child’s size may be heard in the classroom, on the playground, in the gym, in the neighborhood-anywhere children have time and an environment that permits hassling or ridiculing others who are different from the norm. Children are very sensitive to such teasing and name calling” (Solovay 2000, 43).
Acts such as this result in poor body image and decreased self-esteem. Kids are often unrelenting in their teasing. Christina Corrigan was a regular thirteen-year-old girl for the most part. The thing that separated her from her peers was the fact that she weighed 680 pounds. She was the recipient of constant torment by her classmates.
When she would walk to school a particular boy used to circle her on his bicycle calling out terrible names and insults (Solovay 2000, 47-48).
But he was not alone in his actions. Almost all the children at her school made fun of her. There is not much that teachers can do about that kind of harassment; kids will always find a way to do it. This was one of the factors that eventually led to Christina dropping out of school. The effects of even limited harassment can be long lasting.
Fat! So? author and Fat Speaker’s Bureau co founder Marilyn Wann recalls, “I had a different background than most fat kids because I did not grow up dieting. My self-esteem was good. Still, when I got teased, it was heavy. Twenty-five years later I still remember very clearly certain kids and what they said. And I remember those certain moments when I just did not want to be who I was. And how much I wanted to be anywhere but there” (Solovay 2000, 43).
Fat children get berated from every side. Their peers, their parents, their siblings and adults pick on them. Due to their weight, fat kids will suffer objectifying and stigmatizing events. Lower self-esteem, alienation, and denial of the benefits of activity while unnecessarily curtailing the kids’ future opportunities are all results of these experiences (Solovay 2000, 44).
It would be virtually impossible to eliminate all prejudice against obese children, but some small steps can be made. The public needs to be educated about fat prejudice in order to alleviate some of the intense cultural pressure put on children to lose weight no mater what the cost (Solovay 2000, 44).
Children do not deserve to be treated differently simply because they weigh more than most other kids their age. “Improving the quality of life for fat children must become a priority for all people interested in a just society” (Solovay 2000, 44).
Fat children lead to fat adolescents, which lead to fat adults. Obesity has become increasingly more prominent in American society.
The Unites States has even been termed an overweight nation. Some twenty to thirty percent of American adults are now considered obese (Hwang 1999 and Hirsch et al 1997).
With this in mind, Americans constantly look around themselves determining their weight status as well as that of those around them. While some Americans do fit the healthy category, others enter the underweight, overweight, and even obese categories, all of which can be unhealthy. Obesity can be termed deviant for a variety of reasons.
Not only is it unhealthy, but it is also a widely unaccepted behavior in U. S. society. The obese are labeled “obscene, lazy, slothful, and gluttonous.” People are ostracized, often never to regain full societal acceptance. Obesity can be termed a folkway, or a norm that is based on custom, tradition, or etiquette and that does not produce societal outrage, but may cause others to think of the violator as odd. Having achieved obese status, the person has also achieved deviant status.
The obese have acquired a conditional deviant status, which can be changed, thereby moving the person back within the norm. However, the deviant label is frequently not easy to remove from oneself. While those who lose weight and can keep it off are cheered on by society, those who regain lost weight have a harder time removing their labels. On the other hand, those who lose the weight and keep it off become positive deviants.
The deviant exits the stigmatized role of obesity, and while the label my still taint the individual, society looks positively upon the deviant’s purification. This exemplifies the structural perspective. Deviance can provide positive benefits to society as well. The rest of society becomes aware that obesity causes poor health due to the higher mortality rate among obese people.
It can then establish its boundaries concerning weight. Once society has established its boundaries, it attempts to uphold them. When someone breaks this norm, the rest of the people feel united in their belief against it. The non-offenders feel more alike in that they uphold the norm.
For instance, society establishes a norm of thinness after having realized that obesity can become costly and is detrimental to health and quality of life. David F. Williamson of The New England Journal of Medicine states that doctors need to encourage greater weight loss in obese patients due to the fact .”.. that obese people are twice as likely to die from any cause as people of normal weight.” This creates a greater susceptibility to a variety of health problems including stroke, heart disease, Type II diabetes, sleep apnea, arthritis, several kinds of cancer and many more problems (Hwang 1999).
Obesity is a major cause of mortality in the US and it substantially increases morbidity and impairs quality of life. Despite this fact, there are subcultures that deem being overweight as highly attractive.
The most prominent of these subcultures is the African American subculture. Within the African American subculture in the United States, obese and overweight women are commonly viewed as beautiful. Some men and women in this subculture discriminate against thin members of the opposite sex. They prefer to be in a relationship with someone who is overweight. In a way, nonconformity helps to preserve their unique subculture. Obesity in this subculture is even maintained through stereotypes such as fried chicken and other fatty foods that are commonly associated with African Americans.
Because people often associate with others who are similar to them, the obese person’s peer group becomes many other obese people. Often, these people reinforce each other’s eating and exercise habits, as well as beliefs concerning obesity. It becomes an acceptable practice to eat often and poorly as well as not exercise. These peer groups perform the function of support and acceptance.
This makes the obese person feel better about them self. The group even allows its members to feel a sense of normalcy. There is not just one reason that people become obese. It seems to be a combination of several different factors.
One of the most prominent factors in a persons becoming obese is genetics. Many people who qualify as being obese feel that the sole reason for their being obese is the fact that it was passed down to them by one or both of their parents. There is no evidence to back up the claim that it is entirely genetic, but genetics definitely can play a significant role. A study done by Mayer (1965) indicated that forty percent of fifteen year olds studied who had one obese parent were obese and eighty percent of adolescents who had two obese parents were obese (Leon 1982, 18).
Only ten percent of the adolescents whose parents were normal weight were obese (Leon 1982, 18).
Other studies show that the genetic disposition is for body type and not body composition (Rodin 1982, 46).
There has been little evidence to countermand an observation by Newburgh and Johnston that most cases of obesity are .”.. never directly caused by abnormal metabolism but (are) always due to food habits not adjusted to the metabolic requirement-either the ingestion of more food than is normally needed or the failure to reduce the intake in response to a lowered requirement” (Stuart 1973, 168).
Some other factors that can contribute to obesity are environmental and social factors.
Often when people are faced with adversity they require some form of an escape. They need something to take their minds off their troubles. Food is a common way for people to escape. Eventually people can accustom themselves to eating in such a way that it becomes second nature to eat when facing adversity.
Soon they start gaining weight and society will label them as obese. The person then deviates in response to society’s having labeled them as obese. Once this has occurred, the obese person internalizes that identity and begins to interact with others in such a fashion. It affects his or her self-concept and social roles. A hot topic dealing with obesity is a proper way to treat it.
There have been several methods that have been applied with less than satisfactory results. One of the main methods in treating obesity thus far has been dieting. Dieting has met with mostly negative results. In 1959 Albert Stunk ard addressed the inefficiency of dieting. He reported that less than five percent of dieters lost large amounts of weight and were able to maintain their weight (Cogan 1999, 234).
“Restrictive dieting has approximately a 95 percent failure rate for maintaining permanent long-term weight loss, defined as five years or more” (Cogan 1999, 235).
Those who complete weight loss programs usually lose about ten percent of their body weight but gain it all back within five years (Cogan 1999, 235).
Medications are another popular method of weight loss. These seem to work pretty well, but there are a few problems with medication. If a person does not modify their eating habits while on the medication, they are likely to gain the weight back after they quit taking the medication. There have also been reports of health problems and addiction coming from taking weight loss medication.
There are three basic popular methods that can be used alone or in a combination to bring about successful weight loss (Dwyer, et al. 1973, 309).
They are dietary modifications, increased physical activity, and medications. A lot of doctors believe that eating a balanced diet and exercise is the best way to get rid of excess weight and keep it off. Obesity has become an epidemic in American society. It is marked by body weight being more than thirty percent fat.
The onset of obesity is determined by a combination of genetic, psychological and environmental factors. Obese individuals constitute nearly thirty percent of the population. They are more susceptible to disease and death than those of normal weight. Obesity can be considered deviant due to its societal reaction. Obesity is visibly deviant, therefore, making it easier for the labeling process to occur.
Once the obese person has been labeled, he or she is deviant. Obesity has become statistically an average behavior in the United States. Nevertheless, it is still “abnormal.” The norm stands that thinness is attractive and worthy (Adler and Adler, 245).
So long as this norm is upheld, obesity will be deviant and people will be labeled for their deviance and inability to.
