IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v87y2013icp9-15.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Standards and classification: A perspective on the ‘obesity epidemic’

Author

Listed:
  • Nicholls, Stuart G.

Abstract

In this paper I critique the increasing standardization of obesity. Specifically, I consider two ‘definitional turns’: the way language has been standardized to such an extent that it obscures uncertainty and variation, and the appearance of objectivity through quantification and standardized measurement. These, I suggest, have fostered a simplified picture of obesity, promoting the classification of weight and thereby facilitating the emergence of the ‘obesity epidemic’. These definitional turns fail to acknowledge the distinctions between fat and mass and intraclass variation within weight categories. A consequence of this process of simplification has been the erroneous application of population level information to individuals in a clinical context, with potentially harmful results.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicholls, Stuart G., 2013. "Standards and classification: A perspective on the ‘obesity epidemic’," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 9-15.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:87:y:2013:i:c:p:9-15
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.03.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953613001627
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.03.009?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Timmermans, Stefan & Almeling, Rene, 2009. "Objectification, standardization, and commodification in health care: A conceptual readjustment," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 21-27, July.
    2. Jutel, Annemarie, 2006. "The emergence of overweight as a disease entity: Measuring up normality," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(9), pages 2268-2276, November.
    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. Whooley, Owen, 2016. "Measuring mental disorders: The failed commensuration project of DSM-5," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 33-40.
    2. Essén, Anna & Oborn, Eivor, 2017. "The performativity of numbers in illness management: The case of Swedish Rheumatology," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 134-143.

    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. Martimianakis, Maria Athina (Tina) & Hafferty, Frederic W., 2013. "The world as the new local clinic: A critical analysis of three discourses of global medical competency," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 31-38.
    2. Brüggemann, Jelmer & Persson, Alma & Wijma, Barbro, 2019. "Understanding and preventing situations of abuse in health care – Navigation work in a Swedish palliative care setting," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 52-58.
    3. Balfe, Myles, 2016. "Standardizing psycho-medical torture during the War on Terror: Why it happened, how it happened, and why it didn't work," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 1-8.
    4. Ezell, Jerel M. & Walters, Suzan & Friedman, Samuel R. & Bolinski, Rebecca & Jenkins, Wiley D. & Schneider, John & Link, Bruce & Pho, Mai T., 2021. "Stigmatize the use, not the user? Attitudes on opioid use, drug injection, treatment, and overdose prevention in rural communities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 268(C).
    5. Per Magnus Mæhle & Ingrid Kristine Small Hanto & Sigbjørn Smeland, 2020. "Practicing Integrated Care Pathways in Norwegian Hospitals: Coordination through Industrialized Standardization, Value Chains, and Quality Management or an Organizational Equivalent to Improvised Jazz," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(24), pages 1-32, December.
    6. Kreuzer, Maria & Cado, Vesna & Raïes, Karine, 2020. "Moments of care: How interpersonal interactions contribute to luxury experiences of healthcare consumers," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 482-490.
    7. Simpson, Bob & Khatri, Rekha & Ravindran, Deapica & Udalagama, Tharindi, 2015. "Pharmaceuticalisation and ethical review in South Asia: Issues of scope and authority for practitioners and policy makers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 247-254.
    8. Vale, Mira D. & Perkins, Denise White, 2022. "Discuss and remember: Clinician strategies for integrating social determinants of health in patient records and care," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 315(C).
    9. Gutin, Iliya, 2022. "Not ‘putting a name to it’: Managing uncertainty in the diagnosis of childhood obesity," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 294(C).
    10. Jutel, Annemarie, 2010. "Framing disease: The example of female hypoactive sexual desire disorder," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(7), pages 1084-1090, April.
    11. Anna Wernhart & Susanne Gahbauer & Daniela Haluza, 2019. "eHealth and telemedicine: Practices and beliefs among healthcare professionals and medical students at a medical university," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(2), pages 1-13, February.
    12. Greener, Joe & Douglas, Flora & van Teijlingen, Edwin, 2010. "More of the same? Conflicting perspectives of obesity causation and intervention amongst overweight people, health professionals and policy makers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(7), pages 1042-1049, April.
    13. Kristín Björnsdóttir, 2014. "The place of standardisation in home care practice: an ethnographic study," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(9-10), pages 1411-1420, May.
    14. Hartman, Anna E. & Coslor, Erica, 2019. "Earning while giving: Rhetorical strategies for navigating multiple institutional logics in reproductive commodification," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 405-419.
    15. Pedersen, Kirstine Zinck & Roelsgaard Obling, Anne, 2020. "‘It's all about time’: Temporal effects of cancer pathway introduction in treatment and care," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    16. Rajtar, Małgorzata, 2016. "Health care reform and Diagnosis Related Groups in Germany: The mediating role of Hospital Liaison Committees for Jehovah's Witnesses," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 57-65.
    17. Wehrens, Rik & Bal, Roland, 2012. "Health programs struggling with complexity: A case study of the Dutch ‘PreCare’ project," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 274-282.
    18. Jovanovic, Maja, 2014. "Creating the ‘dis-ease’ of high cholesterol: A sociology of diagnosis reception analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 120-128.
    19. Hutson, David J., 2013. "“Your body is your business card”: Bodily capital and health authority in the fitness industry," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 63-71.
    20. Ihlebæk, Hanna Marie, 2021. "Time to care - An ethnographic study of how temporal structuring affects caring relationships in clinical nursing," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 287(C).

    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:87:y:2013:i:c:p:9-15. 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.