In recent years, organizations, such as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA, a non-profit fat acceptance organization), and the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF, a non-profit organization representing the food industry), have debated obesity and what it represents. How do cultural producers promulgate competing cultural meanings? More importantly, how meaningful are these cultural messages in shaping the day-to-day lives of cultural consumers? Using content/frame analysis, survey data, and in-depth qualitative interviews with a sample of overweight and obese respondents, the project examines framing competitions and dynamics among three key producers (the CDC, NAAFA, and CCF) and also how individuals use conflicting cultural meanings to construct the self and to negotiate strategies of health action related to exercise and food consumption -- the two main external determinants of weight.
Culture is an elusive concept that does not parcel out neatly for empirical study. However, as identifiable and measurable elements of culture, frames provide one way to tap into cultural meanings and the relationship between culture and agents. Little is known about obesity frames and also about the relative success of competing frames in shaping reality for individuals, the conditions under which individuals are swayed towards one frame or another, and the gendered influences of frames. By studying both framing competitions and frame uses, the dissertation sheds light on (1) cultural meanings that lead to or combat well-documented and longstanding size and gender-based discrimination; (2) cultural meanings that motivate strategies of health action that may contribute to or reduce obesity; and (3) cultural meanings that influence self-concept, including the resistance, formation, and/or neutralization of stigmatized fat identities. The project also speaks to some unexpected relationships between frames and agents, as observed in the relative success of health messages in a time of increasing obesity rates and the prevalence of size-based discrimination despite a general increase in social tolerance. In sum, the dissertation produces an in-depth understanding of cultural frame competitions and the relationship between frames and agents; an understanding that may lead to greater social equality and sound public health policy.
