Fat in Four Cultures

A Global Ethnography of Weight

By: Cindi SturtzSreetharan, Alexandra Brewis, Jessica Hardin, Sarah Trainer, Amber Wutich

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Paperback | 22 June 2021

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236 Pages

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22.8 x 15.2 x 1.3

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Traits that signal belonging dictate our daily routines, including how we eat, move, and connect to others. In recent years, "fat" has emerged as a shared anchor in defining who belongs and is valued versus who does not and is not. The stigma surrounding weight transcends many social, cultural, political, and economic divides. The concern over body image shapes not only how we see ourselves, but also how we talk, interact, and fit into our social networks, communities, and broader society.

Fat in Four Cultures is a co-authored comparative ethnography that reveals the shared struggles and local distinctions of how people across the globe are coping with a bombardment of anti-fat messages. Highlighting important differences in how people experience "being fat," the cases in this book are based on fieldwork by five anthropologists working together, simultaneously, in four different sites across the globe: Japan, the United States, Paraguay, and Samoa.

Through these cases, Fat in Four Cultures considers what insights can be gained through systematic, cross-cultural comparison. Written in a highly eye-opening, narrative-driven style, with key terms clearly defined and consistently used, this book effectively explores a series of fundamental questions about the present and future of fat and obesity.

Industry Reviews

Fat in Four Cultures is an extraordinary work of coordinated cross-cultural comparative ethnographic research about a common health issue in the contemporary world. This talented group of medical anthropologists show that fat is not an individual medical risk factor, but rather an entanglement of complex social, economic, psychological, and health-related issues. This is a landmark contribution to the anthropological study of obesity as well as a detailed guide of how team-based anthropological research should be organized.

- Peter J. Brown, Emory University

This book makes two important contributions - one to scholarship and one to pedagogy. On scholarship, this excellent comparative ethnography examines the avoirdupois pandemic at the ground level - real people, making decisions about what to eat and how that's causing the world to get fatter. On pedagogy, the authors' discussion of the methods they used for collecting and analyzing their ethnographic data is the best I've seen. Every student of ethnography should read this book.

- H. Russell Bernard, Arizona State University and University of Florida

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