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The CDC has identified obesity as a serious public health problem for both children and adults in the U.S. The causes of obesity are myriad and complex. And the more we learn about the science of how our bodies burn fuel, convert excess fuel to fat, and what that fat can contribute to health problems, the more we challenge old ideas. Calories in = energy used is no longer a simple formula.

The more we learn about the connection between obesity and health, the more we understand that it is not food alone that contributes to the problem. The concept of an “obesity epidemics,” prevalent in public debates, is quite complex not only from a public health point of view, but also in terms of cultural and social issues. How did this discourse develop and how does it influence policy decisions at the local and national level? What is the impact of popular and visual culture? What are the implications from a psychological point of view? What initiatives can be effective in helping individuals to establish a healthy and constructive relation to food and their body image?

Moderated by Fabio Parasecoli, Coordinator of Food Studies, will explore new approaches to these issues.

Panelists include:

 – Lisa Rubin, associate professor of Psychology at the New School for Social Research

 – Leah Sweet assistant professor of Art History at Parsons The New School for Design

 – Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, assistant professor of History and Co-founder, Healthclass2.0

 – Christine C. Caruso, assistant professor at Touro College of Pharmacy.

Sponsored by the Food Studies Program at the New School for Public Engagement in collaboration with in collaboration with SoFAB Institute as a part of the Culinaria Query and Lecture Series

 

by Fabio Parasecoli

from Huffington Post

Why, as a society, do we care so much about the way we look? Why are we often uncomfortable with our reflection in the mirror? Too frequently, what we see does not match what the world around us promotes as acceptable or preferable. It is not only a question of clothing, hairstyles, or accessories. Our body itself frequently bothers us to the point where we end up perceiving it as some external burden imposed on our real self, that inner self that does not succeed in shining through the obtrusive flesh. We try our best to feel in control of our outer image. Enjoying total mastery over the body and its appearance is a powerful fantasy that can influence the way we manage ourselves on a daily basis, with health as our primary goal and often with looks as a secondary but not so irrelevant objective.

The image-obsessed media intensifies the relevance of these concerns, with a barrage of shows, news, books, magazines, and, more recently, even podcasts occupying our waking hours. But who decides what body images are appropriate, successful, and positive? How does mainstream culture adopt these images? Or rather, does mainstream culture actually create them? Why do they have such a strong clutch on our emotional wellbeing?

These elements are frequently not of our making. Popular culture has turned into a powerful repository of pictures, opinions, and customs that influence how we look at ourselves, the way we eat, and the whole economic and social system ensuring that we get the food we need on a daily basis. In fact, visual images at times filter our biological requirements (hunger) and psychological needs (desire). Desires, fantasies, and fears coagulate around us and in our bodies, deeply influencing us as individuals and communities. Moreover, images are never innocent or neutral: They always come entangled in a network of ideas and practices that are provided by our family, by the environment, by the culture in which we are born. The image of our body is never just that: In the eyes of the surrounding beholders, and as a consequence in ours, it is the representation of a man or of a woman, of a cute or of a not-so-cute person, of a strong or a weak individual.

In the U.S. cultural context, being overweight is often interpreted as a sign of lack of will and determination and as the external manifestations of emotional shortcomings. This element has had a profound influence on the way public debates about health and obesity — a contested concept in itself — have been framed, on how research on these issues has been conducted, and often on the policy measures adopted to deal with them. The very use of the expression “obesity epidemics” has been questioned. As I discussed in an earlier post, some critics now point to factors that for political, economic and cultural reasons are often underestimated or outright ignored, such as environmental toxins, pharmaceuticals, and overproduction in contemporary food systems. However, the mainstream discourse overall stigmatizes large bodies as the consequence of misguided personal choices, while interpreting them automatically as unhealthy and undesirable.

These are some the themes that will be examined in a public panel at The New School on Fat Studies, a new field that, in the words of scholars Sondra Solovay and Esther Rothblum, “questions the very questions that surround fatness and fat people.” How are notions of shame and disgust constructed and maintained? What power relations hide behind the very idea that people are expected to diet, even when they are healthy? What dynamics of exclusions are generated? Are there institutions, groups, or industries that gain from this state of affairs?

Whether we realize it or not, we learn discipline about food intakes by participating in a cultural system that gives our bodies meaning and makes them acceptable. They become part of practices and social arrangements that range from public health to nutrition, from visual culture to psychotherapy. Much more than can be covered in a panel discussion, but it is a start…