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Created: May 15, 2003
Latest Update: May 17, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Second Revision of First Draft Outline on
The Social Construction of Obesity

By Millie Coulter
Jeanne Curran, Faculty Advisor

Now I've gone back to the revised outline and dropped duplicate coverage, and tried to give the paper a focus. How's this for starters? jeanne

Outline:

1. Introduction and Theoretical Background

   1. Statement of the Problem: Obesity and Discrimination

      Initial statement of personal interest in the topic and why you think that interest is shared by others. You might try a catchy opening statement, Millie, something like "I've been dieting all my life, and I'm tired of it." Whatever. But people will be more tempted to pick up your thesis if it has a personal appeal. Brief. Non-autobiographical - i.e. no disclosures, just interests.

      1. Visibility of stigma - along with relative difficulty and complexity of causes.
      2. Cause itself as a visible stigma - for example, frequent consumption of comfort foods - that's visible- theory reference: Goffman, Stigma.

   2. Background

      1. What is obesity?
         • History of Obesity within the US. -
      2. Cultural elements that go with obesity in US.

         • FAST food - loss of discretionary time for preparing food
         • Mobilization - need to take food from home leads to cultural problems - different types of food for different cultures - so fast food takes over and everyone eats the same things
         • Emotional - comfort food This fits in here with FAST food and the forced mobility of modern life. Used to be that this was only urban. Not so any longer.
         • Certain foods become "fashionable" - the Coke and Pepsi fight. Food as a Commodity - the "cool" "in food
         • Herditary - Cultures have different matabolisms, depending on their food supply and their climate - this, too, affects obesity
         • The Image that Is Projected from the Media

   3. Theoretical Background

      • Status characteristic theory -- essentialism Foucault against essentialism
      • Foucault and Chomsky Michael Daniel's article. Particularly obesity as "essentialism."
      • Goffman, Presentation of Self
      • Asch and conformity
      • Normative expectancies and outliers
      • Illocutionary discourse and the Other
      • Gordon Fellman, competitiveness and mutuality; agency and structural context
      • Other theories.

2. Methods and Procedure

   1. Secondary Analysis of Published Narrative Sources

      The extensive attention lavished on the issue of obesity today means that publishd sources are more than adequate for a demonstration of the issues addressed in the thesis.

      1. There will be a primary focus on narrative because of the importance of bringing out the stories in a manner designed to prompt illocutionary discourse. This is especially important in an area where the influence of normative expectations has shaped so much of our "knowledge" of the subject.

   2. Secondary analysis and graphic presentation of data from national and international archives to supplement the narrative data.

   3. Development of a theoretical perspective for continuing analysis of the issues. This means, Millie, that you want to put the theoretical background into a neat enough format and intelligible enough summary that others who wish to follow patterned discrimination like this might be able to start with your theory section as a first guide.

   4. Delimitations.

      Include here the reasons for giving up interviews. First of all, there was already more than enough material in the public domain, and secondly, your thesis needed to evolve to this point before you could have reasonably constructed an interview schedule. Also, I still can't see how interviews would have helped. Can you? This wasn't about a survey. It was about understanding the stigmatization of the dominant discourse and its effect on the interdependence of interpersonal relationships in healthy development and growth. So what would you ask people?

3. Narrative Sources and Summaries:
   Responding to Obesity with A Touch of Sanity

   This section will consist of stories of obesity taken from published sources. I would suggest, Millie that you balance the narratives over the list, once you have finalized it.

   • FAST food - loss of discretionary time for preparing food
   • Mobilization - need to take food from home leads to cultural problems - different types of food for different cultures - so fast food takes over and everyone eats the same things
   • Emotional - comfort food This fits in here with FAST food and the forced mobility of modern life. Used to be that this was only urban. Not so any longer.
   • Certain foods become "fashionable" - the Coke and Pepsi fight. Food as a Commodity - the "cool" "in food
   • Herditary - Cultures have different matabolisms, depending on their food supply and their climate - this, too, affects obesity
   • The Image that Is Projected from the Media

4. Analysis: Re-Interpreting Obesity in a Post-Modern World

   This section will consist of specific conceptual linkings from the narrative reviews to the underlying theories on which you have based your analysis. I would suggest that you use the same basic list that you use in Chapter III: Narrative Sources and Summaries.

   • FAST food - loss of discretionary time for preparing food
   • Mobilization - need to take food from home leads to cultural problems - different types of food for different cultures - so fast food takes over and everyone eats the same things
   • Emotional - comfort food This fits in here with FAST food and the forced mobility of modern life. Used to be that this was only urban. Not so any longer.
   • Certain foods become "fashionable" - the Coke and Pepsi fight. Food as a Commodity - the "cool" "in food
   • Herditary - Cultures have different matabolisms, depending on their food supply and their climate - this, too, affects obesity
   • The Image that Is Projected from the Media

5. Summary and Conclusions

   1. Summarize the whole thesis.

      This is essentially your abstract which couldn't really be written effectively until you've gotten the thesis to this point.

   2. Some conclusions to which we have already come over the course of writing of the thesis. Not in any specific order. Just as I recall our discussion of them.

      • Recognize the built-in judgmental nature of this category as we classify obesity as a disease.
      • Only recently have we come to understand that obesity is harmful to health. One approach is to respond with caring to a recently recognized illness. Not to blame someone for having an illness we didn't even know existed.
      • Share with others who have learned to see past the pounds.

   3. Make the final points you hope that people will take from this thesis. Limit them. Human memory works best between three and seven units. So probably try for three to five things you'd like people to have understood. Give them lots of white space and show them off. Kind of like the notes you'd hope your students would take.