Social Epidemic of Obesity

The article discusses the correlation between child obesity and socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity in the United States. Rogers, Robert, and colleagues are researchers in health and social science from the University of Michigan and Massachusetts Department of Public Health, whose aim is to understand social and economic factors that substantially underpins childhood obesity. The researchers argue that race/ethnicity is positively associated with the rates of childhood obesity. They conclude that race/ethnicity is mainly a high predictor of overweight/obese status, particularly for children with Hispanic and African American status when accounting for socioeconomic status among communities in Massachusetts. Low-income communities show a high prevalence of obesity. The paper helps understand the relationship between socioeconomic factors and the spread of obesity across different American communities. The study, however, has focused only on household income but failed to take into consideration the physical and social environment, and other factors unique to every household, region, neighborhood, and community.

Huang, He, et al. “A social contagious model of the obesity epidemic.” Scientific Reports 6 (2016): 1-9.

The article explores the obesity epidemic as a global social and health challenge that is rapidly spreading and causing high mortality rates among the world population. The paper is published by three health and social scientists from the Institute of Technology, Bejing. The authors describe the obesity epidemic as an outcome of voluntary behaviors resulting from the spreading undesirable health-linked actions such as binge eating, while at the same time preventing the contagion of healthy behaviors. Controlling obesity is not easy, according to the article, but it is essential to understand the inter-person dynamics of the epidemic. The inter-personal contacts do not drive the spread of obesity, unlike the conventional viral contagions, but the social contagion processes are derived from mental factors such as depression, sense of security, and self-esteem. The paper helps to understand how social environment factors, including social relationships, relate to health. The limitation of the research is that it does not focus on a specific population or geography to make it easier for cross-referencing. However, it provides a comprehensive insight into understanding the social contagion of obesity.

Williams, Amy S., et al. “Socioeconomic status and other factors associated with childhood obesity.” The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine 31.4 (2018): 514-521.

Williams, Amy, and colleagues are a group of researchers from the University of Missouri “Department of Family and Community Medicine.” Their aim in this particular research was to study how socioeconomic conditions modify risk factors linked to the prevalence of child obesity. They concluded that birth weight, parental smoking, and not eating dinner together as a family were key modifiable factors related to obesity and overweight among kindergarten-age children irrespective of socioeconomic status. The article aid in the understanding of how social and economic factors contribute to the social epidemic of obesity.

Lee, Hedwig, Kathleen M. Harris, and Joyce Lee. “Multiple levels of social disadvantage and links to obesity in adolescence and young adulthood.” Journal of School Health 83.3 (2013): 139-149.

This article is co-authored by a team of academic researchers from the University of Washington, the University of North Carolina, and Michigan University sociology departments. The paper explores multiple factors, including disadvantaged family, neighborhood level, peer, and schools, to establish the contexts much linked to obesity in young people and adolescents. Their findings were that school-level disadvantage significantly correlates with the high rate of obesity in both adolescent males and females, while family disadvantage significantly affected the female. They concluded that the school serves the primary setting in the effort to prevent obesity. The study is essential in understanding how sociological factors influence the spread of obesity across adolescent males and females.

Hruschka, Daniel J. “Do economic constraints on food choice make people fat? A critical review of two hypotheses for poverty–obesity paradox.” American Journal of Human Biology 24.3 (2012): 277-285.

Hruschka’s article contributes to the understanding of the obesity paradox, the reason why the trend of obesity is frequently reversed, with the less educated and poorer population more likely to be obese/overweight compared to their wealthier countrymen and women. They concluded that deprivation or poverty leads people to go for cheaper foods, which in the end translates to overconsumption of energy. The reverse gradient in the rates of obesity is particularly rampant in women in developing countries, according to the researcher, further pointing to the correlation between socioeconomic factors and obesity across communities.

Lainscak, Mitja, et al. “The obesity paradox in chronic disease: facts and numbers.” (2012): 1-4.

Lainscak, Mitja, and colleagues further expand the understanding of the obesity paradox, comparing the trends in both developed and developing countries. The authors are drawn from different fields cutting social environment, agriculture, and health sciences. In their analysis, the authors observe the relationship between obesity and poverty in both developed and developing countries. Their finding postulates that the rate of obesity and overweight in developing countries increases along with income growth and economic development. The leading factor for this trend is the easy accessibility of low-cost of highly processed foods with low nutritional value and empty calories. Higher unemployment, irregular meals, and lower education levels are among the leading causes of obesity in developing countries than developed ones.

Ball, Kylie, et al. “The role of socio-cultural factors in the obesity epidemic.” Obesity epidemiology: from etiology to public health 2 (2010): 105-118.

Ball, Kylie, and colleagues explore specific components of socioeconomic factors that are the most predictors of obesity. Their paper contributes to the understanding of how meanings attached to socio-cultural factors influence the perception of obesity in different societies. Occupation, according to the authors, is mostly linked to obesity, followed by other factors such as education and income levels. While exploring the socio-cultural influence of obesity, the researchers concluded that it is not ethnicity, social relationships, or socioeconomic position that influences the risk of obesity across populations but the meaning attached to obesity in those different setups.

Sanabria, Emilia. “Circulating ignorance: Complexity and angiogenesis in the obesity “epidemic. ” Cultural Anthropology 31.1 (2016): 131-158.

Sanabria, Emilia, a cultural anthropologist, explores known and unknown facts about obesity and the attribution of ignorance and knowledge circulating in the field of public health. The research contributes to the understating of individual behaviors as far as public health is concerned. Sanabria maintains that obesity, like most of today’s public health challenges, is influenced by a myriad of interlinked interactions covering the political economies of market regulation, changing family structures, agricultural production models, and appetite regulations. The paper connects social, political, and economic relations and how the dynamics interlink to influence the spread of obesity across the populations.

                                                                    Works Cited

Ball, Kylie, et al. “The role of socio-cultural factors in the obesity epidemic.” Obesity epidemiology: from etiology to public health 2 (2010): 105-118.

Hruschka, Daniel J. “Do economic constraints on food choice make people fat? A critical review of two hypotheses for poverty–obesity paradox.” American Journal of Human Biology 24.3 (2012): 277-285.

Huang, He, et al. “A social contagious model of the obesity epidemic.” Scientific Reports 6 (2016): 1-9.

Lainscak, Mitja, et al. “The obesity paradox in chronic disease: facts and numbers.” (2012): 1-4.

Lee, Hedwig, Kathleen M. Harris, and Joyce Lee. “Multiple levels of social disadvantage and links to obesity in adolescence and young adulthood.” Journal of School Health 83.3 (2013): 139-149.

Rogers, Robert, et al. “The relationship between childhood obesity, low socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity: lessons from Massachusetts.” Childhood Obesity 11.6 (2015): 691-695.

Sanabria, Emilia. “Circulating ignorance: Complexity and angiogenesis in the obesity “epidemic. ” Cultural Anthropology 31.1 (2016): 131-158.

Williams, Amy S., et al. “Socioeconomic status and other factors associated with childhood obesity.” The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine 31.4 (2018): 514-521.