How Global is Obesity?

Abstract

This is a review of Fat Planet: Obesity, Culture, and Symbolic Body Capital edited by Eileen P. Anderson-Fye and Alexandra Brewis. The central puzzle that this volume resolves to address is why people would adopt the new body norms with growing enthusiasm. This project came to fruition through a School of Advanced Research (SAR) Seminar (March 2014) organised by the editors. It yields a conversation between the various authors who dabble between a range of techniques and paradigms. The key theme is fat stigma, and the model adopted to address it is that of the symbolic body capital. The authors come together from a range of disciplines such as Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, and Psychiatry to unearth the changing global cultural norms on bigger bodies that play out locally.