Theorizing the obesity epidemic: Health crisis, moral panic and emerging hybrids

The academic literature on obesity frequently bifurcates into two poles: a realist pole that treats obesity as a biomedical fact, a health risk and an ‘epidemic’, and a second, constructionist pole that adopts a critical view of obesity as a moral panic driven by political interests and cultural values. Drawing on a wide range of literature from epidemiology, medical sociology, public health, political economy, cultural studies and popular journalism, this article maps out a realist-constructionist divide within academia and the public sphere, and examines the insights and limitations of these perspectives. After mapping the main ‘silos’ within obesity studies, we examine two key questions: (1) is the obesity epidemic based on medical fact or political interest, and (2) is obesity a disease or a social identity. Drawing from the metatheoretical principles of critical realism, we argue that obesity scholarship can be advanced by conceptualizing the obesity epidemic as a ‘hybrid’ construction that arises out of the interaction of biophysical, socio-economic and cultural forces. This analysis demonstrates the useful role of social theory integrating diverse analytic perspectives, and bringing clarity to a heated public debate that characteristically points the finger of blame at obese individuals.