Designing Fat: The Construction of a Global Obesity Epidemic

1. Designing Fat: The Construction of a Global Obesity Epidemic Scott Stewart, Department of Philosophy, Cape Breton University Sue Korol, Department of Psychology, Cape Breton University

2. Fat and Getting Fatter? • Overweight and obesity has increased by 31% between 1976-1991. • Increased 24% between 1994-2000. • CDC in 1999 said 280,000 US deaths due to obesity. • Mokdad (2004) claims 400,000 UD deaths per year.

3. Desire to be thin • 90% of women want to lose weight. • 55% Americans on a diet. • $30-40 billion per year spent on weight loss industry. • 90% of formerly obese people would rather be blind or have a leg amputated than be fat again.

4. Hacking and looping effects • Indifferent kinds: not changed by classification. • Interactive kinds: are changed by classification. • Homosexuality as an interactive kind. • Fat as an interactive kind.

5. Outline of paper • The obesity epidemic is overblown. • People cannot sustain weight loss. • Obesity’s connection to disease overblown. • Re-classifying fatness. • Fat and fit: looping from above. • Fat and proud: looping from below.

6. Calculating obesity: Height-weight tables • 1912 insurance industry table includes age. • 5’4” woman in 20s average weight 126lbs. • In 30s average weight is 132lbs. • In 40s, 140lbs. • In 50s and 60s, 145lbs. • 1942-43 Metlife tables: average becomes ideal, no age adjustment.

7. Calculating obesity: Height-weight tables • 1959 insurance industry tables. • Ideal weight becomes desirable weight. • 5’4” woman of any age with slight build should weigh between 108-116lbs. • BMI is calculated by (weight in lbs x 703) ÷ (square of height in inches). • BMI is just another height-weight table.

8. Set Point theory and big Pharma • Individual weight remains stable only within a 20lb range. • Good and bad news for diet industry. • They can’t deliver what they promise. • Constantly returning customers. • Fen-Phen and PR. • Only 3% better than placebo. • Collusion between Wyeth and academics.

9. Is fat really deadly? • Health industry links obesity to a number of chronic illnesses. • A closer look. • Hypertension: 85% of time fat is causally unrelated. • Atherosclerosis: even morbidly obese people are no more likely to have it.

10. Is fat really deadly? • Type II diabetes. • Cured irrespective of weight loss (diet and exercise). • Cross-cultural comparisons. • India has highest rate of diabetes at 12% while only 2% obesity. • Samoa’s rate of obesity is very high (75%) while diabetes prevalence of 9%. • China and urban vs rural.

11. Fat and fit: looping from above • Some experts believe that overweight and obesity do not make people sick. • Lifestyle: Consumption of unhealthy foods and lack of exercise. • Fat people can be fitter than thin people. • 5’10”, 138lb man twice as likely to die than 175lb man. • Middle aged 5’5” woman has half risk of death at 146lbs than at 115lbs.

12. Psychosocial dangers of a weight-obsessed culture • Depression and obesity are positively correlated and reciprocal. • Relationship between weight and stress varies depending on dieting history; yoyo dieting. • Re-focus on other non-weight factors: urbanization, stress, exercise, bad food, social cohesion.

13. Fat and proud: looping from below • Health, morality or aesthetics? • Sloth, gluttony and greed. • Fat and ugly. • Harassment. • Fat acceptance. • Gay pride. • De-medicalization. • Disability movement.

14. Conclusion • Ancel Keys study. • Making normal weight people lose weight made them food obsessed. • Subjects’ metabolism slowed by 40%, body temperatures and heart rates dropped. • Restoring positive relationships with food.