Reconstructing obesity : the meaning of measures and the measure of meanings / edited by Megan B. McCullough and Jessica A. Hardin.

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CHOICE Review

McCullough and Hardin have assembled an anthology of anthropological works that disrupt popular understandings of fatness/obesity as moral failings and simple individual problems. By situating this collection at the nexus of understanding of knowledge about obesity and obesity itself as contextual, sociocultural, and contested phenomena, the various authors contribute to an understanding of obesity as both a local biology and a global assemblage. The book's four parts discuss the globalization of obesity definitions and metrics, which reify Eurocentric cultural definitions of size and health; the multiple meanings of obesity in cross-cultural contexts; the assumptions built into the epidemiological and biomedical models, especially as they move across international borders and how they elide the complexity of the association of obesity with ill health; and challenges to the stigmatization in media and biomedicine and medical practice. The authors' overall goal is to trouble the assumption that if the reality and facts of obesity are known, then behavior and belief will logically follow. Critical interrogation of this assumption would go a long way in improving interventions into health. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All academic levels/libraries. J. L. Croissant University of Arizona