首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Fat Stigma Spreads Around the Globe In Mexico, the latest anti-obesity (肥胖) public health campaign shows people with bulging
Fat Stigma Spreads Around the Globe In Mexico, the latest anti-obesity (肥胖) public health campaign shows people with bulging
admin
2012-01-27
39
问题
Fat Stigma Spreads Around the Globe
In Mexico, the latest anti-obesity (肥胖) public health campaign shows people with bulging (鼓 起的) stomachs eating oily food.
"I have always thought that it’s your own fault," said Sergio Miranda, 35, who has a shoeshine stand in Mexico City. "People eat just things that make them fat, like bread and pizza."
Mr. Miranda said he did not really notice whether his clients were fat or not. But he does when he is in a crowded city bus.
"The fatties take up a lot of space," he said. "People are annoyed. It’s uncomfortable."
At a time when global health officials are stepping up efforts to treat obesity as a worrisome public health threat, some researchers are warning of a troubling side effect: growing stigma (耻辱) against fat people.
"Of all the things we could be exporting to help people around the world, really negative body image and low self-esteem are not what we hope is going out with public health messaging," said Alexandra Brewis, executive director of the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University.
Dr. Brewis and her colleagues recently completed a multicountry study intended to give a snapshot of the international Zeitgeist about weight and body image. The findings were troubling, suggesting that negative perceptions about people who are overweight may soon become the cultural norm in some countries, including places where plumper, larger bodies traditionally have been viewed as attractive, according to a new report in the journal Current Anthropology.
The researchers elicited answers of true or false to statements with varying degrees of fat stigmatization. The fat-stigma test included statements like, "People are overweight because they are lazy" and "Some people are fated to be obese."
Using mostly in-person interviews, supplemented with questions posed over the Internet, they tested attitudes among 700 people in 10 countries, territories and cities, including American Samoa, Tanzania, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Paraguay, Argentina, New Zealand, Iceland, two sites in Arizona and London.
Dr. Brewis said she fully expected high levels of fat stigma to show up in the "Anglosphere" countries, including the United States, England and New Zealand, as well as in body-conscious Argentina. But what she did not expect was how strongly people in the rest of the testing sites expressed negative attitudes about weight. The results, Dr. Brewis said, suggest a surprisingly rapid "globalization of fat stigma."
"The change has come very, very fast in all these places," she said.
To be sure, jokes and negative perceptions about weight have been around for ages. In Mexico, for instance, a nickname (绰号) like "gordo" which translates as "fatty," raises no eyebrows.
But what appears to have changed is the level of criticism and blame leveled at people who are overweight. One reason may be that public health campaigns branding obesity as a disease are sometimes perceived as being critical of individuals rather than the environmental and social factors that lead to weight gain.
"A lot of the negative health messages have a lot of negative moral messages that go with them," Dr. Brewis said.
Surprisingly, stigma scores were high in places that have historically held more positive views of larger bodies, including Puerto Rico and American Samoa.
Stephen McGarvey, a professor of community health at Brown University who studies Samoan health issues, noted that 25 years ago, Samoan study subjects living in Samoa and New Zealand who viewed thin and large body silhouettes (轮廓) mostly had positive feelings about bigger bodies. (The exception was young, educated women, who showed a preference for slimmer silhouettes.)
Dr. McGarvey said that more extensive study was needed to determine just how much that had changed, and that it was important that public health campaigns intended to curb diabetes and high blood pressure did not end up creating negative images of overweight individuals.
"A public health focus on ’You can change,’ or ’This is your fault,’ can be very counterproductive," he said. "Stigma is serious."
What is not clear from the new research is how pervasive fat stigma has become. With only 700 people included, the study is not a representative sample of each country and reflects only a snapshot of cultural attitudes in the area studied. In addition, the research looked only at selected locales and did not include any Asian or Arab countries.
In India, for instance, being overweight or obese is associated with being middle class or wealthy, said Scott Lear, associate professor for health sciences at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. Even so, Dr. Lear, who is studying rising childhood obesity in that country and in Canada, agrees the potential for stigmatization exists. "We know in developed countries that obese people are less successful, less likely to get married, less likely to get promoted," he said.
Nisha Somaia, 38, who lives in New Delhi and pioneered the first plus-size women’s clothing stores in India, said criticism against people who are large was often direct and open. In India, she said: "Fat equals lazy. Fat equals comedy relief."
The fashion industry, Ms. Somaia said, seems to promote the ideal of beauty as having a body "like an adolescent boy."
"I think all around the ideal of beauty is skinny thin," she said. "I had a highly educated friend confess that she would prefer for her children to be anorexic rather than overweight."
Marianne Kirby of Orlando, Fla., who writes the fat-acceptance blog TheRotund.com, said the apparent spread of fat stigma was not surprising, given the global push to brand obesity as a major health threat.
"The fundamental message we’re putting into the world is that fat people deserve shame for their own health," said Ms. Kirby, co-author of the book Lessons from the Fat-o-Sphere. "We’ve been pushing this message for a long time. I don’t think anyone is immune to it."
Dr. Brewis notes that far more study is needed to determine the extent of fat stigma and how it is affecting the lives of individuals. She noted that her study was designed only to detect cultural views of obesity and did not show whether people were experiencing more social or workplace discrimination as a result of the growing fat stigma.
"I think the next big question is whether it’s going to create a lot of new suffering where suffering didn’t exist before," Dr. Brewis said. "I think it’s important that we think about designing health messages around obesity that don’t exacerbate the problem."
By saying obesity is a disease, public health campaigns are thought to indicate that weight gain
选项
A、is caused by bacteria
B、is related to the environment
C、is people’s own fault
D、is mainly due to social factors
答案
C
解析
该句提到,一个原因也许就是公众健康运动为肥胖打上疾病的烙印,使之看起来更像个人的原因而不是由于环境和社会因素导致体重增加。由此可知,公众健康运动把体重增加看作是人们自己的错误,故答案为[C]。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/cdy7777K
0
大学英语四级
相关试题推荐
A、Mostpeopledon’tthinkitisaseriousproblem.B、Mostofourpollutioniscausedbythingspeopleneed.C、Thegovernmenthas
Inmyfamily,weweretaughtandshownbyexamplesthatpolitiescanbeanobleprofession,thateachofusshouldm【B1】______the
Inmyfamily,weweretaughtandshownbyexamplesthatpolitiescanbeanobleprofession,thateachofusshouldm【B1】______the
Eversincethefirstcavemandiscoveredthathecoulddrawarrowsonthegroundwithapointedstick,manhasbeentryingtocom
Weliveinasocietyinthereisalotoftalkabout【M1】______science,butIwouldsaythattherearenot5perce
Anflights___________(由于暴雪而被取消),manypassengerscoulddonothingbuttakethetrain.
RobSapp,27,fromKent,lovedgameswhenhewasattendingschool.Infact,helovedgamessomuchthathedecidedtobecomeaP
Onedayapoliceofficermanagedtogetsomefreshmushrooms.Hewasso【C1】______whathehadboughtthatheofferedto【C2】______
A、Youmightnotgetintoyourfirstchoiceuniversity.B、Somethingmightchangeatyourfirstchoiceuniversity.C、Theremaybe
A、Byair.B、Bycar.C、Bysea.D、Bytrain.A有考生可能会通过notifythecoastguard,判断嫌疑犯会选海路出逃,其实女士安排男士通知海岸警卫队的目的是防止嫌疑犯乘私人飞机从privateairf
随机试题
A甲状腺B肾上腺髓质C肾上腺皮质束状带D肾上腺皮质网状带E肾上腺皮质球状带男性雄激素来自
A.雌激素增多B.雄激素增多C.胃肠淤血、消化吸收障碍、菌群失调D.肝细胞进行性或广泛坏死E.肝细胞脂肪变性肝硬化所致的消化吸收不良是由于
A.安徽、湖北、四川等B.江西、四川、湖北等C.海南省D.广东、云南、海南E.柬埔寨、泰国、越南、印度尼西亚
某民事案件一审过程中,同级检察院得到消息发现法院的主审法官与原告一方串通,经常接受该方当事人的请客送礼。甚至有收受大额贿赂的嫌疑。对于该案件的审理,你认为检察院应采取何种措施?
下列各项中,不属于会计信息系统的网络组成部分的是()。
处于建设期间的建设单位,其保管期满的会计档案可以销毁。()
会计机构负责人,会计主管人员应当具备的基本条件是()
()是人们对他人的认知判断,首先是主要根据个人好恶得出一个判断,然后再从这个判断推论出认识对象其他品质的现象。
Readthearticlebelowaboutfiveforcesaffectingstrategy,andthequestionsontheoppositepage.Foreachquestion(13-18
Whenchildrenhitpuberty(青春期),theirabilitytolearnasecondlanguagedrops.Theyfindithardertolearntheirwayarounda
最新回复
(
0
)