Mirror Sites:
CSUDH - Habermas - UWP - Archives

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Soka University Japan - Transcend Art and Peace
Created: May 5, 2003
Latest Update: May 17, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

The Social Construction of Obesity

By Millie Coulter
Jeanne Curran, Faculty Advisor

This phase of the writing of the thesis comes after long months of discussions, review of the literature, and false starts and frustrations. This sequencing of events is typical when the author chooses a topic out of genuine concern for both the topic and for the contribution the thesis can make to the issue. There are simpler ways to complete an M.A. degree, particularly when the school offers, as ours does, the option of comprehensive examinations.

Millie and I have wrestled with all these issues to a point that we believe we have reached an illocutionary understanding about the role obesity plays in our society and the contribution that Millie would like to make to changing that role. There were moments when the literature we shared had this effect, such as the book that made Millie realize that she did and could love her body. And she wanted to help all of us reach that point through her thesis. Right now, there's an extra five or ten pounds in my way, but I trust Millie to help me overcome a fixation on those pounds and see past them to my body, the whole body that is so many things I've never stopped to think of. We are taught not to think of our bodies in this culture. Perhaps, with the help of Millie's work, many of us can change that.

The outline we did on (I think it was May 7) was a joint endeavor. I keyed the entry (Mother taught me to type.), and everyone else dictated, edited, commented. This is a good example of how we can collaboratively think, once the issue has been mulled over and discussed for a while. Who was everyone? I'm not sure we even remember. Burdell Acorn was there that day, and Dana Leagons, and Sherryl Pinkney, and Cheryl McFadden, and Kenya McClinton, and Carolyn Gilmore-Jones, and Yvonne Nettles, and Patricia Acone. I'm sure there were others who came and went and didn't sign in for grades on transactions in which they participated. For us, this is collaboration, sharing in each others' ideas, thinking things through together, enabling academic discourse.

Despite all our earlier efforts, it looks like this is the outline that Millie would like to follow. Of course, now that we've gotten this far along, the thesis will just fall into place. But you mustn't forget all the wrangling and alternate roads we took on the way here. Once you have an outline at this stage, you're well on your way to completion. I suspect that in spite of all the fears I tend, this is the most exciting part of turning out a thesis.

Remember these are notes to ourselves, made in the pandemonium of office discussions. As Millie fills in the outline, more extensive information might make it more understandable to those of you who weren't there for the fun. jeanne

Outline:

1. Discrimination against obese people.

   Discrimination against obese people. This means that obesity is a status characteristic by which people are judged.

   • Status characteristic theory -- essentialism Foucault against essentialism
   • Foucault and Chomsky Michael Daniel's article. Particularly obesity as "essentialism."

2. What is obesity?

3. History of Obesity within the US.

   Link that to the cultural elements that go with obesity in US.

4. The Causes of Obesity

   1. Herditary
   2. Emotional - comfort food
   3. Food as a Commodity - the "cool" "in food

5. Obesity and Discrimination

   1. Size - Consequences

6. Obesity as a Disability

7. The Image that Is Projected from the Media

8. Obesity Treatment

   1. Recognize the built-in judgmental nature of this category as we classify obesity as a disease.

   2. Only recently have we come to understand that obesity is harmful to health.

9. Recommendation for Avoiding Obesity

10. Recommendations for Re-Interpreting Food and Its Role in our Lived Experience

11. Conclusions
    jeanne's comments for the next step