Transformations of the Welfare State: Small States, Big Lessons

Transformations of the Welfare State: Small States, Big Lessons
ISBN-10
0199296324
ISBN-13
9780199296323
Category
Business & Economics
Pages
320
Language
English
Published
2010
Publisher
Oxford University Press, USA

Description

This book is a history of man's complex relationship with body weight explores its connections with social welfare, income, diet, and changing attitudes towards body image. According to the World Health Organization we are in the midst of a global obesity crisis. Is obesity a disease itself or a symptom of underlying physiological or psychological illnesses? Is it a sign of social excess and therefore not a disease in the medical sense at all? Is it really "new"? In this book the author presents an account of the history of obesity, looking at the changing attitudes towards the body, from regarding it as "God's temple" to more mechanical and practical concerns from the Enlightenment onwards. In the eighteenth century obesity was understood as a problem of the affluent; today the affluent are more likely to have a personal trainer and a healthier diet, and it is the poorer classes who are more likely to be overweight. He considers obesity in many contexts, including a chapter on obesity in China and the impact of modernization and Westernization on this very different culture. Taking the issue up to the present day, he examines the wider political and social implications obesity raises, considering whether obesity should be cured by diet or surgery, by psychotherapy or economic improvement, by healthier food choices or by social relocation.

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