Heavy Obesity Research
October 25, 2006 6:28 PM
I am looking for good scholarly resources on the social influences on childhood and adult obesity.
Many of my teacher ed students wish to write educational papers on childhood obesity, which I think is great. What I do not think is all that great is what eventually follows-- "We just need to make kids and parents understand what healthy food is and how good it is for you!" While this is often true, there are also issues of access to foods, poverty and SES that also sometimes have to do with childhood obesity.
I have looked around a bit in the databases I can access and easily navigate (educational ones), but I would like to ask if anyone has any good, scholarly references or good web resources for research done in the "sociology of obesity" for lack of a better way of putting it.
I want to direct my students to resources that indicate that yes, some kids are lazier than others, some like the taste of Cheetos better than apples, but then there is also an aspect of childhood (or even adult obesity) that is not entirely laziness or gluttony.
Many of my teacher ed students wish to write educational papers on childhood obesity, which I think is great. What I do not think is all that great is what eventually follows-- "We just need to make kids and parents understand what healthy food is and how good it is for you!" While this is often true, there are also issues of access to foods, poverty and SES that also sometimes have to do with childhood obesity.
I have looked around a bit in the databases I can access and easily navigate (educational ones), but I would like to ask if anyone has any good, scholarly references or good web resources for research done in the "sociology of obesity" for lack of a better way of putting it.
I want to direct my students to resources that indicate that yes, some kids are lazier than others, some like the taste of Cheetos better than apples, but then there is also an aspect of childhood (or even adult obesity) that is not entirely laziness or gluttony.
I have vague memories of a study around 1992 linking childhood obesity to marketing of sugary cereals and other junk food. This isn't a great article, but it has some references scattered through out that might be worth pursuing.
posted by carmen at 10:54 PM on October 25, 2006
posted by carmen at 10:54 PM on October 25, 2006
The Center for Ecoliteracy, which focuses on sustainable agriculture but works a lot on issues affecting school lunches, might be of some help. Searching their site for obesity turns up some stuff that might be good starting points.
posted by occhiblu at 11:15 PM on October 25, 2006
posted by occhiblu at 11:15 PM on October 25, 2006
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1) What you are looking for is studies in the area of the "social determinants of health & disease"- in this case, obesity. If you do a google search for "social determinants of obesity," you get this list of sources; a google scholar list comes up with this. These lists are a pretty good place to start. (I'm using google lists because I'm not sure what literature you have access to).
2) One particular area of study that you may want to direct your students to is studies on the availability and proximity of fresh foods in poor neighborhoods. Here's a search for some of this literature. In particular, you should look at this recent article in the American Journal of Public Health, which summarizes and cites much of the relevant literature, and features a case study of Detroit. See also this recent study from North Carolina.
3) One difficulty that you may encounter is that the research in this area tends to utilize sophisticated statistical techniques (regression analysis, often coupled with GIS), and thus the literature gets very technical very fast. Finding literature that will be accessible to your students may be difficult. for this reason, you may want to direct them to Marion Nestle's book, Food Politics, especially Section III, which examines the influence of large agribusiness on school nutrition.
Good luck!
posted by googly at 9:17 PM on October 25, 2006