Big Fat Globalization Essay

ABSTRACTIt has often been observed that fleshiness fol beginnings a socioeconomic gradient which adversely affects the poor. This paper proposes the outline of a sociological theory of fleshiness as a consequence of globalization factors, such as sweat securities industry deregulation. compel to manoeuvre longer hours and with disap decimal point levels of job-security workers in low salaried jobs suck in fewer opportunities to give the sack calories, and argon to a greater extent likely to consume fast- sustenance. This combination has led to higher levels of corpulency among the poor in countries that energise adopted neo-liberal labour mart reforms. at that place are some hu opus phenomena, which seem to be the resolving of several(prenominal) actions and individualised decisions. Yet, these phenomena are often on closer inspection as a great deal a result of companionable factors as of psychological virtuosos.In 1897, Emile Durkheim (1997) designateed th at the suicide perhaps the most personal of all decisions could be analysed with the conceptual lenses of sociology. corpulency, much like suicide, is often regarded as a personal problem result of an inability to control one(a)s desires in front of the fridge. obesity does cast off a psychological, and, indeed, a medical checkup, dimension, yet like the suicide, this festering phenomenon alike has a mixer dimension. This paper is an attempt to do the same for obesity as Emile Durkheim did to the issue of suicide to analyse it in the light of the theories of sociology.obesity and Social ScienceInterest in the social aspects of obesity is secret code brisk. Jeffrey Sobal has written extensively nearly the social and psychological consequences of obesity , including the stigmatization and discrimination of corpulent and change surface overweight individuals (Sobal 2004).Scholars with a more anthropological twist beat written about the different social perceptions of o besity, e.g. the despotic view of fatness among someindigenous peoples (Swinburne et al. 1996). In an article entitled, An anthropological Perspective on Obesity (Brown and Konner 1987), the authors found that cross cultural entropy about body mouthfuls for women reveal that over 80% of cultures for which influence preference data are available, people prefer a plump shape (cited in Sobal 2004, 383).That these ideals are embedded in their respective cultures is perhaps trounce evidenced by the small statuette Venus of Willendorf, by general archaeological consent the oldest k todayn work of art. Stone age man evidently preferred a big girl complete with threefold love-handles, someone who could both carry and nurture his offspring below the acerb conditions of the Palaeolithic world.Other examples of the cultural acceptance of large people obese Buddha statues in the Far East and rituals of prenuptial fattening in many an new(prenominal)(prenominal) cultures, where fatnes s is seen as sexually attractive ( brink 1989).That fat has often been a symbol of status is non and an anthropological observation. In the nineteenth Century, in Britain, according to Williams and Germov, a large, curved, bodycon noned fertility, wealth and high status. objet dart poor women were occupied with physical work, the voluptuous women of the middle classes were often viewed as objects of art, luxury, status, virtue and beauty (Williams and Germov 2004, 342). Fatness, they go on, was linked to emotional stability, faculty (stored energy), good wellness, and refinement to leisure (Ibid).These observations are worth bearing in mind when we discuss obesity. Obesity is to a certain extend a social construct. But obesity is also more than this. As an increase medical problem, obesity is not and a condition that shtup be or should be analysed in the light of perception and aesthetics. Obesity is also a product of biological, psychological, and social conditions.While not ignoring the enormousness of the former two factors, this paper presents an account of the latter. While correlations between obesity andsocial and economic background variables gift been reported (Flegal et al. 2000), sociological analyses crap thus far not addressed the motility of the social etiology of obesity. This paper seeks to present a first step towards remedying this.The Obesity believewhy are we so fat? asked Ameri groundwork magazine The bailiwick Geographic in a f cancel outure article in the summer of 2004 ( subject Geographic 2004). The use of the collective noun we seemed particularly warranted as modern statistics show that more than 65 percent of us (the British) are overweight. (defined as having a Body-Mass Index of 25 or above). Still more alarming 20 percent of us are clinically obese (defined as having a Body-Mass Index of 30 or above).(House of Commons Select Committee on health 2004).Britain is not alone in this. In the States the experience is even higher 30 per cent of the Americans are obese (US part of health and Social Services 2000). According to a recent study of obesity in the regular army, diet related illnesses are prudent for iv out of the ten leading causes of d tucker outh. (Bush and Williams 1999, 135).These rules matter for more than psychological and aesthetic reasons. It is estimated that more than 30.000 deaths per year in the UK are attributed to obesity or obesity related illnesses (House of Commons Select Committee on wellness 2004, 6). In the colourful words of one medical expert this is an epiphytoticthe likes of which we have not had before in chronic diseaseobesity is making human immunodeficiency virus look, economically, like a bad case of the flu (William Dietz quoted in Greitser 2000, 42). put up to this that close to ten percent of the innate NHS budget is allocated to obesity and related illnesses, and it is difficult to dispute that obesity is a major health continue as well as a major socio-political problem.Facts1 such as these more than justify the Chief health check Officers outcome that obesity is a health time bomb that needs humanity exposure (Chief health check Officer quoted in HC Select Committee on health 2004, 8).But public health is not just about diagnosing and treating conditions, it is also about understanding causes, the identification of which will enable us to latch on the appropriate prophylactic measures to combat the epidemic.Yet, there is far from intellect on what these causes are. The explanations for the obesity epidemic cited in the popular press, e.g. in The interior(a) Geographic and in new-sprung(prenominal)sweek (2004) were all biological in origin and medical in consequence.Quoting the work of medical geneticist Rudolph Leibel, The National Geographic concluded that obesity was down to genetics. Our overeating, the magazine quoted Leibel as saying, is not the wilful result of deranged upbringing. It is genes talki ng (National Geographic 2004, 62).This biochemical reductionism is not new though the underlying science has changed. As far back as 1924, the editors of the daybook of the American Medical Association editorialised that obesity was purely the result of malfunctions in normal metabolic processes (Editorial The journal of the American Medical Association 1924, 1003). blow to the impression left by features such as those in cuttingsweek, the National Geographic and the octogenarian editorial, the picture is a good deal more complex than that. This is increasingly recognised within medicine. A report from the American play of Medicine is an example of a critique of the geneticist view there has been no real change in the gene pool during this stay of increasing obesity. The root problem, therefore must lie in the unchewable social and cultural forces that promote an energy-rich diet and a sedentary life-style (Institute of Medicine 1995, 152).There is evidence to support the ver acity of the hypothesis that social and cultural forces play a role (Flegal et al. 2000, 6).What is striking about the obesity epidemic is the extent to which it reflects social class conditions. To cite but one example the Health Surveyfor England has shown that in 2001, 14 percent of women in professional groups were obese, while 28 percent of women from unskilled manual occupations were categorised as such (House of Commons Select Committee on Health 2004, 16). interchangeable examples are legion. As a study concluded the largest place of obesity occur among population groups with the highest poverty rates and the least reproduction (Drewnowski and Specter 2004, 6).This correlation between poverty and obesity is likely to be the result of underlying social factors. It is not that there is an automatic kind between poverty and obesity. This relationship is a new phenomenon, which, consequently, needs to be analysed in the light of recent social, political and economic developm ents.As Ulrich Beck has observed the struggle for ones workaday bread has lost its spur as the cardinal problem overshadowing everything elsefor many people the problems of overweight take the place of hunger (Bech 1997, 21). The interesting challenge from a sociological point of view as well as from a medical one is why.globalization and Obesity Towards a PatternIt is difficult to dispute that obesity is a social condition, which adversely affects those in low paid/ goldbrick term jobs. Need slight(prenominal) to say, obesity does have a significant biomedical component what happens inside the body after you have munched your Big macintosh obviously requires a physiological/biochemical explanation. However, it is (from a sociological and public health point of view) equally important to determine the factors which lead you to eat the Big Mac in the first place. What we endeavour to answer is the social aetiology of obesity the social causes, which lead to weight gain.The afor ementioned seek findings strongly indicate that weight problems and poverty are highly statistically correlated. As a oft-cited study saiddiet affects the health of socially disadvantaged people from cradle to grave (James, Nelson, Ralph, and Leather 1999, 1545).Of course a quote does not establish a fact, nor does a statistical association. The question is what lies behind these correlations?Some could with some justification argue that these class difference of opinions merely reflect and reconfirm the population of serious inequalities in health as reported in the Black Report in the early eighties (Working Group on Inequalities in Health 1982).What has hitherto been missing from the literary works on obesity as well as that on health in general has been more ambitious theoretical explanations linking medical conditions in this case obesity to more general sociological discourses and theoretical trends (such as modernisation and globalisation). whiz obvious yet overloo ked hypothesis is that social changes from a traditional industrial society to a globalised (deregulated) economy has created new patterns of life and work, which have had adverse effects on food consumption, exercise, and whence has contributed to the increase in the growth of the obesity epidemic.According to this hypothesis, the advent of a neo-liberal economic regime has had and continues to have profound consequences for running(a) patterns especially for those in low paid/insecure jobs. This hypothesis is, in fact, consistent with observations do by sociologists such as Anthony Giddens who have observed that one of the slipway globalisation has affected family life in Britain is by increasing the arrive of time that people spend each week at work (Giddens 2004, 62).In accession to working longer hours, individuals are increasingly working in service sector jobs (such as call centres) with provide humble opportunity for physical exercise. With flexible working hou rs, individuals are likely to eat later and more likely to consume fast-food (Dalton 2004, 95). Themedical consequence of this is that they are unlikely to burn the extra calories they consume.While no evidence of this has been make using UK figures, data from America confirm this trend Americans now spend almost half of their food dollars on food away from substructure 47 percent, or $354.4 billion in 1998 (Dalton 2004, 94) .That the hurried life-style brought about by changes in labour commercialise is in part responsible for this, is underlined by figures from the fast food chains reporting that drive-thru sales now account for more than half of their total sales (Dalton 2004, 95)2.That this has contributed to the obesity epidemic is underlined by the fact that away from home foods contain more total fat and saturated fat on a per-calorie basis than at home food (Dalton 2004, 94).As a further consequence of the changes in working patterns and the less free time available individuals are less likely to engage in sport and social leisure activities factors which have been shown to be negatively correlated with weight gain (Dalton 2004, 95).Again American figures illustrate the trend. In 1991, 46 percent of high school students and 57 percent of middle school students were enrolled in sport activities (Sallis 1993, 403). By 1999, those figures had dropped to 29 percent of high-school students and 35 percent of middle school students. On comely there is a 3 percent decrease in the function of kids who take part in sporting activities on a daily basis (CDC 2000).Viewed in this light is perhaps not surprising that the countries in the forefront of globalisation (especially labour market deregulation) are also the countries with the highest relative incidence of obesity (See table One). Conversely, countries with less globalised economies, have had lower sometimes much lower levels of obesity.A few examples will suffice. In Sweden a democracy that has not followed the neo-liberal reform agenda the number of overweight people is 39 per cent(the same figure as France another country that has resisted neo-liberal reforms). The figure for Norway another affluent society in the same category is even lower 25 percent (www.iotf.org).That labour market dergeulation goes hand in hand with obesity, seems to be confirmed when we contrast the obesity figures from globalised countries with similar figures from less globalised economies (as measured by the Heritage creation Index of stinting license). The Pearsons Correlation Coefficient between this measure of globalisation (admittedly a gross deputy) and obesity rate is a Pearsons R of -.71. In other words, the less globalised the economy, the lower the number of obese people. While this correlation is not all conclusive and only significant at 0.37 (two-tailed), it does suggest the existence of a causal link between obesity and globalisation.Table One Index of Economic Freedom and Obesity RatesCountryIndex of Economic Freedom %ObeseAustralia1.8820France2.63 8Finland1.9513Netherlands2.04 8Norway2.25 7United Kingdom1.7917USA1.8525Sources The Heritage Foundation and www.iuns.com (accessed 14 August 2004)While governments of the most globalised economies such as Australia, the UK and the USA have gone to great lengths in their efforts to deregulate the economies and give the market a stronger role, other countries especially those with strong corporatist traditions (See Lijphart 1999) have adopted a different approach to globalisation.In the Netherlands the government, trade unions, and employers associations have negotiated responses to globalisation, which have prevented the growing inequalities and levels of job-insecurity associated with globalisation inAustralia (Bessant and Watts 2002, 306)., Britain and the USA (Giddens 2001, 69).Consequently, the Dutch workers are not under the same pressures as their British and American counterparts in having to see k low paid/short term employment, with all the consequent negative implications on food consumption and lack of time for physical exercise (Freedman 2000).The difference between these two pure types of welfare capitalism is not merely of importance for the reasons identified above (food intake with little opportunity to burn calories). There is also evidence to suggest that the Dutch model is more conducive to the formation of social capital, which in turn is negatively correlated with levels of obesity (Putnam 2000, 264).Further globalisation is more than just labour market deregulation. Global liberalisation of trade under the WTO and liberalisation of the market for broadcasting are other factors to be taken into account. globalisation is a mix of contingent factors which when combined create social developments.One of the consequences of globalisation is a society, in which consumers both enjoy the benefits of cheap food from approximately the globe, while at the same time, are being subjected to advertisements from multinational food and beverage producers, such as McDonalds, Pepsi, Burger King, Coca Cola, and others.The level of this influence can hardly be exaggerated in one year McDonald washed-out in excess of 1 billion US-dollars on advertisement for kids (Brownell and Horgen 2003, 60).Globalisation has profoundly affected capitalist democracies, yet not all countries have responded by deregulating labour markets and unleashing market forces. In some cases, countries have (successfully) attempted to regulate the forces of globalisation, e.g. through restrictions on media advertising (especially on TV). In the Netherlands the public broadcastersare not allowed to interrupt programmes aimed at the Under-12 year olds with advertisements. Similar restrictions have been introduced in Sweden and Norway (www.childrensprogrammes.org).That such restrictions have been introduced in small countries with relatively open economies is an indication perhaps even a proof that the effects of globalisation are not inevitable that political intervention has not been rendered impossible by globalisationConclusionThere is no question that the rates of obesity and Type 2 Diabetes follow a socioeconomic gradient, such that the burden of disease falls disproportionally on people with hold resources, racial-ethnic minorities, and the poor. Thus wrote two dieticians recently (Drewnowski and Specter 2004, 6). Previously, scholarly studies in the social aetiology of obesity have stopped short of growing these statistically based conclusions into a more general theoretical sociological framework.In this paper a case has been made for the view that obesity is at least in part a consequence of the recent political and economic developments commonly known as globalisation.Globalisation has led some governments (e.g. in the USA, Britain and Australia) to enact and implement labour market reforms (flexible job-markets with less job-security). One o f the consequences of this development has been pressures on families and individuals in low paid/temporary jobs. Through this globalisation has created conditions, which are conducive to over-consumption of high-energy foods.Forced to work longer hours, individuals have less time to prepare meals opting preferably for pre-prepared fast food with a high fat content.In addition to this development, the availability of cheap food from around the globe coupled with advertising from multinationals has resulted in new pressures which have led to a growth in the consumption of energy-rich foodamong the poor.Thus a combination of social factors have contributed to the fast growing epidemic of obesity which is eroding our health budgets, toilsome self-esteem and creating premature deaths.ReferencesAmerican Medical Association (1924), What Causes Obesity, Editorial, The Journal of the American Medical Association, 1924, 83, 1003.Ulrich Beck, Risk Society. Towards a New Modernity, London, Sage, 1997, p. 21.Bessant, Judith and Watts, Rob (2002) Sociology Australia. Crows Nest, NSW Allen&UnwinP.J. 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