Doctoral Dissertation Research: Biological normalcy, social stigma, and allostatic load in US adolescents

这个博士论文项目将使用比较和生物文化的方法来更好地理解在美国文化背景下身体表型是如何被理解的，以及这些文化理解如何导致青少年的生物差异。研究人员将测量两组青少年的恒定负荷(低水平慢性压力的衡量标准)，以评估在不同流行病学背景下因感知体重耻辱而产生的心理社会压力的生物学影响。这项工作将解决美国弱势群体中肥胖的表型规范、社会耻辱和肥胖共病之间的复杂关系，目前肥胖、被感知的体重耻辱和体重歧视的发病率很高。研究结果将与研究参与者以及课程专家分享，以开发新的学习模块。该项目支持对第一代女大学生进行研究生培训。这项研究采用混合方法、顺序解释策略，使用问卷、生物标志物和人种学访谈来比较印第安纳州劳伦斯县(38%)和印第安纳州门罗县(22%)两个不同人群的肥胖率。该项目围绕着生物常态的概念展开，指的是人类社会对什么是“正常”人体的理解--正常指的是关于身体“应该”是什么的标准思想，以及不同表型特征的统计分布。研究人员使用这一概念来解决：1)关于什么是“正常”或健康身体的文化信念如何与人口中的统计生物规范(即肥胖率)相关，以及2)这些规范信念如何影响人口中生物特征(即恒定负荷)的统计分布。据推测，在印第安纳州的两个现场观察到的肥胖患病率的差异将与感知的体重污名的差异相关，那些报告更高感知污名的人也有更高的非稳态负荷，这种关系将受到几个社会和行为因素以及应对策略的调节。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This doctoral dissertation project will use comparative and biocultural approaches to better understand how body phenotypes are understood in the US cultural context, and how these cultural understandings may contribute to biological disparities among adolescents. The investigators will measure allostatic load (a measure of low-level chronic stress) in two groups of adolescents to assess biological impacts of psychosocial stress from perceived weight stigma in various epidemiological contexts. The work will address complex relationships among phenotypic norms, social stigma, and co-morbidities of obesity in a vulnerable section of the US population, at a time when there is a high prevalence of obesity, perceived weight stigma, and weight discrimination. Research findings will be shared with study participants as well as curriculum specialists to develop new learning modules. The project supports graduate training for a female, first-generation college student. This research employs a mixed-methods, sequential explanatory strategy, using questionnaires, biomarkers, and ethnographic interviews to compare two populations varying in prevalence of obesity: Lawrence County, Indiana (38%) and Monroe County, Indiana (22%). The project is framed around the concept of biological normalcy, which refers to the ways in which human societies develop understandings of what a "normal" human body is - normal referring to normative ideas about what bodies "should" be as well as statistical distributions of different phenotypic traits. The researchers use this concept to address: 1) how cultural beliefs about what constitutes a "normal" or healthy body are related to statistical biological norms (i.e. obesity prevalence) within a population, and 2) how these normative beliefs influence the statistical distribution of biological traits (i.e. allostatic load) in a population. It is hypothesized that variation in obesity prevalence observed between the two field sites in Indiana will be associated with differences in perceived weight stigma, with those reporting higher perceived stigma also having higher allostatic load, and that this relationship will be moderated by several social and behavioral factors and coping strategies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.