EAGER: Ethnographic Investigation of Fat Stigma in Three Countries

该奖项是探索性研究（EAGER）的早期概念资助。该项目将提供第一批数据，深入探讨发展中国家人们对超重（“肥胖耻辱”）的看法的变化。pi正在建立一个可以跨文化应用的象征性身体资本介导的肥胖污名和向上流动之间关系的概念模型。他们假设，在经济繁荣的一个临界点上，肥胖作为一种不受欢迎的个人和社会特征的观念开始扩散。在项目的这一阶段，他们将对关键概念进行人种学评估，并在随后的阶段进行更广泛的基于调查的研究。全球肥胖患病率的上升与全球经济参与度的提高有关，影响了饮食和工作模式。与此同时，即使在传统上重视体型较大的社会，对超重的耻辱感似乎也在增加。人们对肥胖耻辱感上升的预测因素和过程知之甚少。人们对体型变化、理想体型和肥胖污名的理解变化就更少了。研究人员将收集这些人群中典型的向上流动部分——大学生——以及与他们年龄相仿的非学生同龄人的人种学数据。他们将在伯利兹、牙买加和尼泊尔这三个国家的大学校园和社区进行参与者观察，这三个国家的肥胖率、财富和文化各不相同。访谈将在六个地点的每个地点与年龄（18-25岁）和性别相匹配的信息者进行（总共120次访谈）。他们还将对更大的样本进行调查。本研究的结果将有助于具体化、道德人格和社会转型的理论研究。他们还将为健康促进项目提供信息，并及时为文化人类学的双向国际教育合作提供机会。3名研究生和2名本科生负责数据收集，2名研究生和2名本科生协助数据编码和分析。

This award is an Early-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER). The project will provide the first data closely exploring the changing meanings that people attach to being overweight ("fat stigma") in the developing world. The PIs are building a conceptual model of the relationship between obesity stigma and upward mobility as mediated by symbolic body capital that can be applied cross-culturally. They hypothesize a tipping point of economic prosperity where the idea of fatness as an undesirable personal and social characteristic begins to proliferate. In this phase of the project they will evaluate ethnographically the key concepts that that they will test with more extensive survey-based research in a later phase. The growing global prevalence of obesity is associated with increased engagement in the global economy, affecting diet and work patterns. At the same time there appears an increase in stigma against overweight even in societies that traditionally valued larger bodies. Little is known about the predictors and processes of the rise of fat stigma. Even less is understood about changing understandings of shifts in body size, body size ideals, and fat stigma. The researchers will collect ethnographic data in a typically upwardly mobile segment of these populations -- university students -- as well as among their non-student age-matched peers. They will conduct participant-observation on university campuses and in community sites in Belize, Jamaica, and Nepal, three countries that vary in obesity rates, wealth, and culture. Interviews will be conducted with infomants matched by age (18-25) and gender in each of the six sites (for a total of 120 interviews). They will also conduct a survey of a larger sample.Findings from this research will contribute to theory on embodiment, moral personhood, and social transition. They will also inform health-promotion programs and provide timely opportunities for two-way international educational collaborations in cultural anthropology. Three graduate students and two undergraduate students will be engaged in data collection, and two graduate students and two undergraduate students will assist in data coding and analysis.