Saguy and Almeling, “Fat Panic!”
21
Ungar, Sheldon. 1998. "Hot Crises and Media Reassurance: a Comparison of Emerging Diseases and Ebola Zaire."
British Journal of Sociology 49(1):36-56.
Yee, Daniel, “DIET: Feds say obesity epidemic weighing down planes, pushing up fuel costs,” SFGate.com (AP),
Thursday, November 4, 2004.
Notes
1
Although this paper focuses on the mass media component, it is important to note that moral panics also entail
heightened public concern beyond the media and response by law enforcement, politicians, legislators and action
groups. These aspects do indeed seem to be in play in discussions of the “obesity epidemic” in the United States,
where fear of fat is generally recognized as widespread, where obesity is becoming more politicized, and where anti-
obesity policies are proliferating. Still, these aspects deserve further study.
2
Obesity Policy Report Weekly, October 7, 2004, Vol. 2, No. 40.
3
This article, which reported that 400,000 deaths were attributed to “poor diet and physical
inactivity”, often
discussed by the researchers and media as ‘obesity,” and that “poor diet and physical inactivity may soon overtake
tobacco as the leading cause of
death” was publicly discredited in November 2004 as an overcount (Kolata 2004)
4
In a comparison with France, he argues that American traditions of ascetic Protestantism partly account for the
moral nature of the American war on fat, as compared to France’s view of slimness as an aesthetic, but not moral,
ideal. Stearns also argues that more relaxed views to sexuality fueled attacks on body fat, particularly on women.
Future work should explore this hypothesis in the current period.
5
We are indebted to Barry Glassner for this point.
6
Overweight is defined as having a Body Mass Index (BMI) over 25, which translates into a woman of average
height (5’4”) weighing 147 pounds or more, a man of average height (5’10”) weighing at least 174 pounds. Obesity
is defined as having a BMI of over 30, which means weighing at least 175 pounds for a woman of average height or
at least 210 pounds for a man of average height. Morbid obesity is defined as having a BMI of over 40, which
translates into at least 233 pounds for a woman of average height or at least 279 pounds for a man of average height.
7
Of course, the inverse could also be true. Greater media attention to the medical risks of obesity could drive more
weight loss surgery. Though we cannot test this here, we expect that most patients who undergo weight loss surgery
are motivated more by social/aesthetic issues than by health per se. Circumstantial evidence for this assertion comes
from a recent study showing that overweight and obese individuals were willing to give up years of their life to lose
even modest amounts of weight (Kolata 2005).
8
We also flagged media reports that were duplicates of articles already included in the sample to ensure that they
were not unduly influencing our results (1=Duplicate Article). It did not change our substantive conclusions in
either regression so we removed this variable from our analysis.
9
The breakdown of profits discussed, included: personal costs (11 percent of articles), weight loss industry (9
percent), weight loss doctors (9 percent), diet foods (8 percent), diet drugs (4 percent), weight loss clinics (2
percent), and weight loss surgeons (1 percent).
10
Note that most structural policy reform is aimed at kids. There has historically been more political support for
limiting children’s choices, probably because they are seen as less capable of making informed choices
independently.
11
Unfortunately, we have too few foreign articles to sustain a logistic regression, so this discussion is only
suggestive.
12
It might be that consumer spending is not the best measure of consumption in Stearns’ theory. Future drafts of
this paper will examine other measures of consumer spending, break spending down by quintile of earners, and
examining a larger time period. Like Stearns, Robert Frank (1999) argues that the 1990s were a period of
heightened consumption, especially of luxury goods. If consumption, according to this or another measure,
increased substantially more in the 1990s than in the 1980s, this would lend greater support to Stearns’ theory.
Convention