In the crowded and busy arena of obesity and fat studies, there is a lack of attention to the lived experiences of people, how and why they eat what they do, and how people in cross-cultural settings understand risk, health, and bodies. This volume addresses the lacuna by drawing on ethnographic methods and analytical emic explorations in order to consider the impact of cultural difference, embodiment, and local knowledge on understanding obesity. It is through this reconstruction of how obesity and fatness are studied and understood that a new discussion will be introduced and a new set of analytical explorations about obesity research and the effectiveness of obesity interventions will be established.

In the crowded and busy arena of obesity and fat studies, there is a lack of attention to the lived experiences of people, how and why they eat what they do, and how people in cross-cultural settings understand risk, health, and bodies. This volume addresses the lacuna by drawing on ethnographic methods and analytical emic explorations in order to consider the impact of cultural difference, embodiment, and local knowledge on understanding obesity. It is through this reconstruction of how obesity and fatness are studied and understood that a new discussion will be introduced and a new set of analytical explorations about obesity research and the effectiveness of obesity interventions will be established.

Acknowledgements
Dedication

Introduction: Re-Constructing Obesity
Megan B. McCullough and Jessica A. Hardin

Part I: Naturalizing Measures and Universalizing Effects

Chapter 1. Resocializing Body Weight, Obesity and Health Agency
Anne E. Becker

Chapter 2. The Mismeasure of Obesity
Emily Yates-Doerr

Chapter 3. ‘Diabesity’ and the stigmatizing of lifestyle in Australia
Darlene McNaughton

Part II: Cross-Cultural Body Discourses and Unstable Categories

Chapter 4. Obesity in Cuba: Memories of the Special Period and Approaches to Weight Loss Today
Hanna Garth

Chapter 5. Fasting for Health, Fasting for God: Samoan Evangelical Christian Responses to Obesity and Chronic Disease
Jessica A. Hardin

Part III: Fat Etiologies and Conflicting Interventions

Chapter 6. Perspectives on Diabetes and Obesity from an Anthropologist in Behavioral Medicine
Rochelle Rosen

Chapter 7. Body Image and Weight Concerns among Emirati Women in the United Arab Emirates
Sarah Trainer

Chapter 8. ‘Not Neutral Ground’: Exploring School as a Site for Childhood Obesity Intervention and Prevention Programs
Tracey Galloway and Tina Moffat

Part IV: Cultures of Practice

Chapter 9. An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Ton of Controversy: Exploring Tensions in the Fields of Obesity and Eating Disorder Prevention
Lisa R. Rubin and Jessica A. Joseph

Chapter 10. Fat and Knocked-Up: An Embodied Analysis of Stigma, Visibility, and Invisibility in the Biomedical Management of an Obese Pregnancy
Megan B. McCullough

Afterword
Stephen McGarvey

Index