| Abstract: | As medicine increasingly targets and identifies obesity as a disease, it is important for social and behavioral scientists
to participate in the identification of obesity origins which exist outside of the immediate individual in question. While
scholars in the medical arena often focus on proximate factors contributing to ill-health, distal factors can be critical
sources of public health problems such as obesity. This paper will highlight important distal factors found to be associated
with obesity. Empirical studies reveal the allocation of resources and goods such as fresh fruits, vegetables, low fat-high
protein foods, exercise opportunity, and education on nutrition, health, and diet are not equally distributed. Moreover, cultural
attitudes toward thinness, health, and beauty are not universal but subject to cultural and ethnic interpretation. The unequal
and often distinctly different distribution of goods, services, and knowledge has been directly linked to obesity disparity
rates by race, social class, and gender. Policy recommendations and suggestions for future research conclude the paper.
Robert L. Peralta is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Akron. He holds a Ph.D. in
Sociology from the University of Delaware. Dr. Peralta's areas of expertise include social deviance, the social psychology
of alcohol use, interpersonal violence, and social inequality. His current research addresses racial and ethnic health disparities.
The nature of alcohol use in intimate partner violence and HIV transmission are the focus of his current research agenda. |
