Before going into too much detail, it is first necessary that we have a good understanding of what exactly obesity is and its prominence in society. “Obesity is understood to be a complex disease requiring multi-faceted treatment. Obesity can contribute to many adverse health outcomes, called co-morbidities. These include diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease” (Atkinson 1999). According to the American Medical Association, being obese means that 30% of your ideal body weight is constituted by fat. Obesity is determined by measurement of body fat, not m

Some other factors that can contribute to obesity are environmental and social factors. Often when people are faced with adversity they require some form of an escape. They need something to take their minds off their troubles. Food is a common way for people to escape. Eventually people can accustom themselves to eating in such a way that it becomes second nature to eat when facing adversity. Soon they start gaining weight and society will label them as obese. The person then deviates in response to society’s having labeled them as obese. Once this has occurred, the obese person internalizes that identity and begins to interact with others in such a fashion. It affects his or her self-concept and social roles.

This exemplifies the structural perspective. Deviance can provide positive benefits to society as well. The rest of society becomes aware that obesity causes poor health due to the higher mortality rate among obese people. It can then establish its boundaries concerning weight. Once society has established its boundaries, it attempts to uphold them. When someone breaks this norm, the rest of the people feel united in their belief against it. The non-offenders feel more alike in that they uphold the norm. For instance, society establishes a norm of thinness after having realized that obesity can become costly and is detrimental to health and quality of life.

The environment outside the home is not exactly a pleasant one for obese children either. Fat children growing up in this culture will be singled out as the subject of many stigmatizing experiences based on their size and shape (Solovay 2000, 43). One of the most common and most accepted forms of this behavior is teasing. “Larger children are often teased or called names. Put-downs that refer to a child’s size may be heard in the classroom, on the playground, in the gym, in the neighborhood-anywhere children have time and an environment that permits hassling or ridiculing others who are different from the norm. Children are very sensitive to such teasing and name calling” (Solovay 2000, 43). Acts such as this result in poor body image and decreased self-esteem. Kids are often unrelenting in their teasing. Christina Corrigan was a regular thirteen-year-old girl for the most part. The thing that separated her from her peers was the fact that she weighed 680 pounds. She was the recipient of constant torment by her classmates. When she would walk to school a particular boy used to circle her on his bicycle calling out terrible names and insults (Solovay 2000, 47-48). But he was not alone in his actions. Almost all the children at her school made fun of her. There is not much that teachers can do about that kind of harassment; kids will always find a way to do it. This was one of the factors that eventually led to Christina dropping out of school. The effects of even limited harassment can be long lasting. Fat!So? author and Fat Speaker’s Bureau cofounder Marilyn Wann recalls, “I had a different background than most fat kids because I did not grow up dieting. My self-esteem was good. Still, when I got teased, it was heavy. Twenty-five years later I still remember very clearly certain kids and what they said. And I remember those certain moments when I just did not want to be who I was. And how much I wanted to be anywhere but there” (Solovay 2000, 43).

The diets of the entire family often revolve around the fat child. All sweetened cereals, candy, desserts and other foods high in calories and fat are gotten rid of. While this isn’t entirely a bad thing, it often leads to resentment from the fat child and their siblings and can create unnecessary problems in the household (Solovay 2000, 41-42). Families showing a distinct preoccupation with their child’s obesity often results in progressive obesity and poor adjustment psychologically (Daniel 1982, 115). Disturbances in family relations, such as th

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