2023-09-20 01:48:00
In prehistory, a time of hunting and gathering and great physical activity, the image of a fat person could be associated with fertility, well-being and abundance, at least this is the most agreed upon interpretation of the Venus of Willendorf. . In the Middle Ages, obesity came to be seen as synonymous with health and happiness in strong contrast to the image of the peasant body worthy of a life of famine. In the West, thinness as an ideal of beauty is recent, becoming hegemonic only at the end of the 1960s, as an example is the fame of the British model Twiggy at that time and the appearance of anorexia at the beginning of the ’90s, which They promoted showbiz luminaries, such as the case of Kate Moss.
Let us keep in mind that this Kent or Barbie model is relatively new, it is barely half a century old. Furthermore, it only managed to prevail in high-income social sectors. Patricia Aguirre, specialist in food anthropology, in her book “Skinny rich people and poor fat people. Eating in crisis” describes well the aesthetic antinomy of classes in the conception of the skinny body; For the rich it is the ideal body, for the poor it is synonymous with a sick body. Thus, in popular sectors the association between obesity and disease is not so clear. As a counterpart, we can say that in sectors with high purchasing power the concept of thinness as something healthy is not so clear either, to the point that if it is taken to the extreme in these sectors it can increase the prevalence of eating disorders such as anorexia.
Nowadays it is possible to hear River-Boca type discussions about the body. Thus, we hear phrases like “so-and-so is fat” in the slang of middle-high and upper-class sectors, the word “fat” is used as a pejorative adjective or synonym of bad taste; But we also witness a “militant rejection” of those who seek to instill the ideal of thinness, who are accused of fatphobia. INADI has already developed guides to combat discrimination against large people.
But the problem of being corpulent or having excess weight transcends aesthetics and ideological or social class discussions, the real problem is of a “health” nature. Excess weight, overweight and even more so obesity, is a significant component of the “Metabolic Syndrome”, which turns out to be a central aspect in a wide variety of physiological disorders in humans and that includes, but is not limited to, alterations immunological, endocrine and autonomic, in addition to those of metabolism. It is defined as a set of disorders or risk factors that increase the probability of having cerebrovascular diseases and/or type II diabetes. This in itself brings together a wide variety of physiological disorders that we have treated as various diseases. Among these factors, in addition to corpulence, it is considered whether the cholesterol and triglyceride levels are abnormal, the state of high blood pressure and the concentration of sugar in the blood.
Our body has not changed essentially since prehistoric times. Humanity has gone through a series of dietary transitions. The incorporation of meat and animal fat 2.3 million years ago was what allowed the survival and development of the Homo genus. The Neolithic revolution that began 10,000 years ago and characterized by the domestication of animals and plants resulted in a greater incorporation of carbohydrates into the diet, which translated into a decline in people’s health. We are currently suffering the effects of the latest food transition, that of industrialized foods rich in simple carbohydrates and saturated fats. Excess weight has much more to do with diet than with physical activity. Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome are Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases and are preventable.
The research of the group that I direct aims, among others, to identify which are the most important obesogenic cultural factors.
*By Prof. Dr. Juan Manuel Bajo: Chair of Biological and Cultural Anthropology, Department of Physiology, Faculty of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of the National University of Córdoba.
#Metabolic #syndrome #bioanthropological #view