31 Mar 2022

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The anthropology views of obesity

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Obesity is a condition where an individual accumulates a lot of body weight that it has an adverse consequence on the person’s health that is, if a human’s body weight is 20% of higher than the healthy weight then an individual is regarded as obese. Also, obesity or overweight describes the existence of too much body fats which is the primary tool for examining the body mass index (BMI) where human are obese if their body mass index is over 30kg/m2.Furthermore, obesity often connects with the pictures of overweight individuals shambling gently through life where overweight has a tie to the western countries more specifically the United States of America. Unfortunately, the predicament about obesity is bigger than the expectation of the human because statistical results from the worldwide pervasiveness of overweight indicate that the occurrence of obesity doubles between 1980 and 2008.Moreover, the delinquent of the wealthy countries is now impacting the nations at all economic heights, and the rates of obesity are higher in developed countries than the developing countries. The problem of overweightedness is a universal problem because there is no region on the earth which has no cases of weight related problem thus obesity is a global epidemic (Campos, 2004).

According to the world health statistics, about 2.8 million people lose their life as an outcome of being obese or overweight since obesity leads to a series of affliction. Overweight may lead to decreased life expectancy and upsurges health problems. Also, the problem of overweight has a link with physiological problems, respiratory problems, and musculoskeletal since individuals have increased chances of infection of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and an infinite number of illness related to common cancers. Obese affects persons both emotionally and physically thus can cause a reduction in self-esteem or isolation of the victim. Nevertheless, overweight is one of the severe public health challenges of the 21ist century, and fat bodies will be the model human shape and to recognize the real cause of obesity is the main way of dealing with the problem at the global level. The reason behind abnormal weight gain in the human body are involved, and there is no accurate answer for the illness.

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There are embodiments of social, culture, environmental, and economic process a person exposes through their lifetime, and the process has a various expression in their life. The processes contribute to a complicated route between biology and health’s association to the excess body weight because they occur at many stages of an individual’s life experience and social-ecological framework thus reflecting the heterogeneity of health anthropology. Also, hunger and obesity have an association with food, and they are the factors that humanity fail to rate together. Besides, humanity fails to realize the relationship between abnormal weight gain and hunger because they associate obesity with plentiful food and famine with unabundant food. For instance, according to WHO, America has the highest occurrence of obese and overweight that is 62% overweight in both genders, and 26 obese in the WHO region, but it is easy to induce a parallel historically with the developing countries. During the Second World War, there were many cases of rejecting recruits because of malnourishment and from that era, individuals and groups with privileges can demonstrate personified health by medium body size which was a usual condition among high-class individuals (Gumbiner, 2001).

Hunger plays a significant role in the increased level of weight in the human body because the primary cause of hunger is poverty and the intervention of food supply resulting from plague or war. Hunger is a global problem, and the nations have a concentration of the possible solutions to the hunger problem. Industrialization and technological advancements are the primary solutions to the hunger since they ensure production of fast food which is less many expensive thus people gain abundant food. Thus, the availability of enough fast food is the primary cause of weight-related problems in the human body implying that hunger is the main reason behind the evolution of abnormal weight gain in an individual’s body, and it is clear that technology benefits and at the same time alter patterns of life of people(Stern,2009).

With the mounting of obesity, there is a definite connexion to diet, and heaviness facilitates the understanding of the progressive process in shaping illness. The emergence of technology has led to modification of what individual farm and the method they plant and affect the type of food human consume and the way they consume since their availability of processed food in the universal market. The foods are more refined implying that they have more added sugar, oils and fats thus making the foods more obesogenic as compared to traditional food which is fresh and local. The tendencies of consuming calories, soft drinks, snaking behavior, and prevailing fast food consumption contribute to the emergence of obesity. Also, technology has a connection with the fast foods and soft drinks consumption thus partially responsible for the increasing rate of obesity (Chambers, 2002).

The stores offer less variety, lower quality, and high prices products than supermarkets. Since in areas of food desert the convenience store are more convenient than supermarkets. A food desert is the regions which have no access to supermarkets containing unprocessed and fresh food. Lower income areas commonly suffer food deserts since the grocers are not willing to invest in the food store fearing that they will not be able to turn profits. Also, individuals in the wealth abjure the market and supermarket conveniently for what is evitable to be more expensive and fewer nutrients food traded in the corner stores. The avoidances of the supermarket are a micro level specific example which supports the micro-level practices like changes in lifestyle. Nevertheless, the acknowledgment for cooking is promptly disappearing because women are not staying home for food nor men bringing home the bacon. Also, most youths do not know how to prepare food and for those who have the advantage to know, they have no time for cooking which enhances the consumption of fast food. The grocery store offers processed, packaged, and frozen food which is more preferably to the youths and working aged partners. Thus, the modifications of the social organization together with fast foods hinders the preparation of a healthy and nutritionally balanced meals than frozen pizzas. 

Obesity is comprehensively imbued by the symbolic meaning thus making weights a fertile mean of exploring conduits between cultures where fatness and big body size overwhelmingly and reflect and shape identities. Also, the culture’s influence is inevitable because culture is the surrounding of the people’s environment and constant bombardment by person’s ideals towards body standards is the common way of life. Besides, in various cultures, body size is the attractive and desirable symbol of self, thinness has an association to healthy, wealthy, beauty, and attractiveness. In contrast, obesity and fatness has a partnership with sexlessness, undesirable, and ugliness but also with unambiguous moral weaknesses for instance lack of self-control, ineptitude, social irresponsibility, and laziness. Thus, changing the body standards will create a fear of food and big fear. Furthermore, the culture enhances people to develop pathological eating norms which impose challenges in regulating body weight which favors weight gain (Goldstein, 2005).

Eating disorders among numerous people in the society may lead to obese in the individuals where the addictive orders like anorexia, compulsive eating, and bulimia are exposing the different bodies to pathological objects since fat people are regarded as a compulsive overeater. Also, overeating habits have a relation with obesity where the health professional argue that obesity victims have to exert their agency in controlling their eating and addictive behaviors and surrender themselves to the complete powerlessness of the disorder. The instance of submission is one of the most problematic and controversial aspects of the overeaters anonymous strategy since in the insistence of surrender a person has to relinquish control overtly and admit powerlessness. The program is feeding back into health discourses about the absence of power inherent in fat ladies which reinforces the status of obesity as a disease that a person is responsible for(Murray,2008).

While in other times in history, obesity was perceived as a sign of fertility and wealth abundance, in the new universe obese people are prone to stigmatization. Male thinks that fatness has a relationship with productivity, social belonging, or familiar responsibilities despite the culture context where significant body size express marriageability and beauty. Also, the increasing of children’s body size is a broad secular trend in the human biology because, in the Morden world, families have fewer children enhancing the likelihood of getting obese. Nevertheless, the value guardians and parents have to the children can lead to indulging feeding since healthy food treats are the custom index of good parental care. Parents appreciate overweight children as a symbol of wealth, and their idea of nourishing a child is an act of caring and loving which may result in overfeeding and obesity.

Anthropological studies are emphasizing on the inheritance of interconnectedness between self and society where an individual is supposed to look only at the dietary protocols and the strategies of the WHO about the chronic illness so as to ensure that there is a reification of an individual self. Solitary self is when a self makes an individual choice that it will be held responsible for making such decisions where the self-choices implies when a person is controlled by the appetite which promotes the development of eating habit by the individual thus leading to obese and weightiness. Nevertheless. Individuals are not calculating about their self-interest since self-interest leads individuals to develop adverse eating habits that are likely to result in abnormal fatness. Obese patients loose hope as a result of discrimination and psychological torture by the family and society members since in most cases family, nutritionist and the broader community are not involved in solving weightiness related problems(Yates,2012).

Environmental changes have an influence on the increased rate of obesity in the universe since trade and globalization, the effects of environmental changes, affects the feeding habit of the people. The rise of corporations and big industries hinders farmers and some business to stay in the market, and the communities that previously reliant on farming enters the job market for commercial work where they depend on in the industrially produced food items. Also, there is a connection between changes in food price and the eating habit of the human leading to high risks of obesity. The worldwide food supply has become increasingly abundant, cheap, and more-aggressive sold paired with gradual rise of vegetables and fruits. Furthermore, the decrease in cost of highly processed food enhances decline in dietary quality and intensified obesity. The economic inequalities between and within nations safeguard food security for an expressive society and some countries as a whole while negating food security for several nations.

An individual’s living environment has a key role in the chances of overweightness by the individuals since people who are in the middle class have a broad horizon and variety of chooses through a vast range lifestyle, activities, and identities. Also, the working individuals are having a choice of activities that are limited by their habitats which have an effect on their healthy because they are more concerned about their future. Every individual in the middle class are not eating for pleasure since they only access food as an alternative of survival which is a form of preventing obesity as compared to high-class people. Besides, worrying about an individual’s future promotes the reduction on the rate of obesity because persons who are worrying about their future are more careful about their diet as compared to those who are not worrying about their future times. Nevertheless, the actions a person takes today reduces the risk of fatness in the future which is an alternative method to curb the rate at which obese and related cases are rising (Warin,2015).

Obesity is an outcome of many personal decisions-eat more or changes diet. But the emergence of obesity across many nations and disproportionately among the developing countries imply that gaining weight is not just an individual’s blame but also medication. Medical practices such as fabric enable people with life such as shelter, fresh water, and health where because maintenance or change may have torn and save people’s life. Also, culture, social, and economic aspects manifest and affects an individual’s biology which has an influence in the number of overweight individuals in the world and obesity has become one of the universal catastrophic endemics that threatens to devastate health systems and emasculate life expectancy internationally. Regardless of the profound significance about the health expense of obese, weightiness is an apparently universal feature of the human state. Obesity is complicated that is not understandable independently of the social group or culture in which obesity appears thus the particular environment of examining obesity is essential to understanding the problem of weightiness. Also, economic growth has an influence on the increase of obesity because lifestyle changes with the change in economic trend (Wolin, 2009).

There is no sole solution to weightiness, not the cure nor the cause; an individual cannot track obesity alone. The efforts to reduce obesity; every society has to own, recognize, and address the problem. Also, people have to look at the bottom of the pattern from which obesity springs and look for the necessities to define the problem. The type of food individuals chooses to eat plays a crucial role in determining person’s risks of increasing weight. But the complex world shapes the personal choice on the diet by the types of food available in the society.

Food is a fundamental need, but it is also much more since food can evoke emotions and memory. Food is toxic because of the method it destroys healthy lives and encourages obesity. The problem of obesity requires more attention so as to reduce the rate weightiness is increasing in the universe. Also, individuals, societies, and the nations have a crucial to play in the anti-obesity campaign since, individuals have to regulate their diet and work tirelessly to maintain their weight. The entire government has to educate people on the various methods to control weight through public seminars and unity with other nations to reduce weightiness in the world. Furthermore, obesity, like hunger, has severe effects on the human and has to declare an international problem.

References

Campos, P. F. (2004). The obesity myth: Why America's obsession with weight is hazardous to your health. New York: Gotham Books.

Chambers, R., Wakley, G., & Staffordshire University. (2002). Obesity and overweight matters in primary care. Abingdon: Radcliffe Medical Press.

Consultation on Obesity, & WHO Consultation on Obesity. (2000). Obesity: Preventing and managing the global epidemic : report of a WHO consultation ; [Consultation on Obesity, 1997 Geneva, Switzerland]. Geneva: World Health Organization.

Goldstein, D. J. (2005). The management of eating disorders and obesity. Totowa, N.J: Humana Press.

Gumbiner, B. (2001). Obesity. Philadelphia: American College of Physicians.

Stern, J. S., & Kazaks, A. (2009). Obesity: A reference handbook. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO

Murray, S. (2008). The 'fat' female body . New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Warin, M., Zivkovic, T., Moore, V., Ward, P. R., & Jones, M. (2015). Short horizons and obesity futures: Disjunctures between public health interventions and everyday temporalities. Social Science & Medicine, 128 , 309-315. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.01.026 Wolin, K. Y., & Petrelli, J. M. (2009). Obesity. Santa Barbara, Calif: Greenwood Press.

Yates-Doerr, E. (2012). The Weight of the Self: Care and Compassion in Guatemalan Dietary Choices. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 26 (1), 136-158. doi:10.1111/j.1548-1387.2011.01169

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