IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v62y2006i12p2988-2997.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Racializing narratives: Obesity, diabetes and the "Aboriginal" thrifty genotype

Author

Listed:
  • Fee, Margery

Abstract

This post-colonial reading of narratives of obesity, diabetes, and the hypothesized "thrifty genotype" ascribed to Aboriginal peoples shows how scientific and popular texts support the belief in biological "race." Although the scientific consensus is that "race" is not a empirical category, many scientists use it without comment as a "crude proxy" for presumed genetic differences. The division between science and the social sciences/humanities protects such confusing practices from full scientific and social critique, something interdisciplinary research teams, science studies and improved peer review could provide.

Suggested Citation

  • Fee, Margery, 2006. "Racializing narratives: Obesity, diabetes and the "Aboriginal" thrifty genotype," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(12), pages 2988-2997, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:62:y:2006:i:12:p:2988-2997
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(05)00670-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. McDermott, Robyn, 1998. "Ethics, epidemiology and the thrifty gene: biological determinism as a health hazard," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 47(9), pages 1189-1195, November.
    2. Green, Chris & Hoppa, Robert D. & Young, T. Kue & Blanchard, J. F., 2003. "Geographic analysis of diabetes prevalence in an urban area," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 551-560, August.
    3. Krieger, N., 2003. "Does racism harm health? Did child abuse exist before 1962? On explicit questions, critical science, and current controversies: An ecosocial perspective," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 93(2), pages 194-199.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Reanne Frank, 2015. "Back to the Future? The Emergence of a Geneticized Conceptualization of Race in Sociology," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 661(1), pages 51-64, September.
    2. McPhail, Deborah & Chapman, Gwen E. & Beagan, Brenda L., 2011. ""Too much of that stuff can't be good": Canadian teens, morality, and fast food consumption," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 301-307, July.
    3. Ramraj, Chantel & Shahidi, Faraz Vahid & Darity, William & Kawachi, Ichiro & Zuberi, Daniyal & Siddiqi, Arjumand, 2016. "Equally inequitable? A cross-national comparative study of racial health inequalities in the United States and Canada," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 19-26.
    4. Bombak, Andrea E. & McPhail, Deborah & Ward, Pamela, 2016. "Reproducing stigma: Interpreting “overweight” and “obese” women's experiences of weight-based discrimination in reproductive healthcare," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 94-101.
    5. Lesley Gray, 2017. "Social Determinants of Health, Disaster Vulnerability, Severe and Morbid Obesity in Adults: Triple Jeopardy?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-10, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ke-wei Wang & Zhan-kun Shu & Le Cai & Jun-Qing Wu & Wei Wei, 2013. "Assessment of the Magnitude of Contextual and Individual Demographic Effects on Diabetes Mellitus and Glucose Intolerance in Rural Southwest China: A Multilevel Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(7), pages 1-7, July.
    2. Shippee, Tetyana Pylypiv & Schafer, Markus H. & Ferraro, Kenneth F., 2012. "Beyond the barriers: Racial discrimination and use of complementary and alternative medicine among Black Americans," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(8), pages 1155-1162.
    3. Bartlett, Judith G. & Iwasaki, Yoshitaka & Gottlieb, Benjamin & Hall, Darlene & Mannell, Roger, 2007. "Framework for Aboriginal-guided decolonizing research involving Métis and First Nations persons with diabetes," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(11), pages 2371-2382, December.
    4. Feagin, Joe & Bennefield, Zinobia, 2014. "Systemic racism and U.S. health care," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 7-14.
    5. Chaufan, Claudia, 2007. "How much can a large population study on genes, environments, their interactions and common diseases contribute to the health of the American people?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(8), pages 1730-1741, October.
    6. Vaneckova, Pavla & Beggs, Paul J. & Jacobson, Carol R., 2010. "Spatial analysis of heat-related mortality among the elderly between 1993 and 2004 in Sydney, Australia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 293-304, January.
    7. Meyer, Ilan H. & Schwartz, Sharon & Frost, David M., 2008. "Social patterning of stress and coping: Does disadvantaged social statuses confer more stress and fewer coping resources?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 368-379, August.
    8. Mitchell, Stephanie J. & Lewin, Amy & Horn, Ivor B. & Valentine, Dawn & Sanders-Phillips, Kathy & Joseph, Jill G., 2010. "How does violence exposure affect the psychological health and parenting of young African-American mothers?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(4), pages 526-533, February.
    9. Bécares, Laia & Nazroo, James & Kelly, Yvonne, 2015. "A longitudinal examination of maternal, family, and area-level experiences of racism on children's socioemotional development: Patterns and possible explanations," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 128-135.
    10. Aletta Dijkstra & Fanny Janssen & Marinus De Bakker & Jens Bos & René Lub & Leo J G Van Wissen & Eelko Hak, 2013. "Using Spatial Analysis to Predict Health Care Use at the Local Level: A Case Study of Type 2 Diabetes Medication Use and Its Association with Demographic Change and Socioeconomic Status," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(8), pages 1-9, August.
    11. Malmusi, Davide & Borrell, Carme & Benach, Joan, 2010. "Migration-related health inequalities: Showing the complex interactions between gender, social class and place of origin," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(9), pages 1610-1619, November.
    12. Everett, Margaret, 2011. "They say it runs in the family: Diabetes and inheritance in Oaxaca, Mexico," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(11), pages 1776-1783, June.
    13. Crighton, Eric J. & Elliott, Susan J. & Moineddin, Rahim & Kanaroglou, Pavlos & Upshur, Ross, 2007. "A spatial analysis of the determinants of pneumonia and influenza hospitalizations in Ontario (1992-2001)," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(8), pages 1636-1650, April.
    14. Natalia Linos & Mary T. Bassett & Alejandra Salemi & Margareta Matache & Konstantinos Tararas & Rodney Kort & Susana Gomez & Michela Zaghi & Rosemary Lane & Brianna Harrison & Karin Lucke & Gianna San, 2022. "Opportunities to tackle structural racism and ethnicity-based discrimination in recovering and rebuilding from the COVID-19 pandemic," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-4, December.
    15. Krieger, Nancy & Smith, Kevin & Naishadham, Deepa & Hartman, Cathy & Barbeau, Elizabeth M., 2005. "Experiences of discrimination: Validity and reliability of a self-report measure for population health research on racism and health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(7), pages 1576-1596, October.
    16. Hacker, Karen & Chu, Jocelyn & Leung, Carolyn & Marra, Robert & Pirie, Alex & Brahimi, Mohamed & English, Margaret & Beckmann, Joshua & Acevedo-Garcia, Dolores & Marlin, Robert P., 2011. "The impact of Immigration and Customs Enforcement on immigrant health: Perceptions of immigrants in Everett, Massachusetts, USA," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(4), pages 586-594, August.
    17. Chae, David H. & Clouston, Sean & Martz, Connor D. & Hatzenbuehler, Mark L. & Cooper, Hannah L.F. & Turpin, Rodman & Stephens-Davidowitz, Seth & Kramer, Michael R., 2018. "Area racism and birth outcomes among Blacks in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 49-55.
    18. Harris, Ricci & Tobias, Martin & Jeffreys, Mona & Waldegrave, Kiri & Karlsen, Saffron & Nazroo, James, 2006. "Racism and health: The relationship between experience of racial discrimination and health in New Zealand," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(6), pages 1428-1441, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:62:y:2006:i:12:p:2988-2997. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.