Edited by Zoltán J. Ács and Alan Lyles
Chapter 4: Obesity, Poverty and Diversity: Theoretical and Strategic Challenges
4. Obesity, poverty and diversity: theoretical and strategic challenges Lenneal J. Henderson INTRODUCTION According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), everyone is becoming fatter, or, to use the polite word, ‘obese’. What accounts for the trend toward overweight individuals across age, race and socioeconomic status? If the result is excess weight, are the causes the same? Are the laws of supply and demand universal? To address these causes, must we craft and broadcast the same health and safety messages in public policy, food and drug marketing, and social and cultural institutions – or must we diversify and variegate these messages? If we believe that excess weight reﬂects socioeconomic status, will an individual, a household or a neighborhood’s economic life chances improve with weight control? Given the diversity of the population in the USA, the reality of persistent poverty and the dynamics of geography and space, what are the appropriate policy, corporate and community-level intervention strategies to reduce and prevent obesity? These are among the interrelated questions driving this chapter. The quality of the evidence purporting the link obesity to race, gender, ethnicity and income is a salient analytical and public policy issue. Medical evidence of the adverse consequences of obesity abounds. Less clear is how the curious admixture of race, culture, income and geographic location cast themselves over the shadows of mental, behavioral and medical explanations for obesity. First, we review samples of existing evidence linking the medically obese to their race, ethnicity, gender and geographic location. Second, we...
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