Write 7 pages thesis on the topic what does it mean to say that obesity is socially constructed. The Social constructionist perspective contribute to our understanding of weight problems since they focus people’s attention on how these problems are created, maintained, and operated within various social environments (Vivien, 2006)

Social determinants with reference to obesity consist of factors such as education, income, socio-economic status, employment and access. All of which signify our level of deprivation. Deprivation is demonstrated to be a powerful forecaster of the prevalence of obesity, both in developed as well as transitional societies and the relationship between socio-economic status and obesity is complex and pervasive (Brown, 1991).

What is striking about the obesity pandemic is the degree to which it mirrors social class conditions. For example. The Health Survey for England has revealed that in 2001, fourteen per cent of women within professional groups were obese, whereas twenty-eight per cent of women from unskilled manual jobs were categorized as such (House of Commons Select Committee on Health 2004). This connection between obesity and poverty is likely to be the outcome of fundamental social factors. It is not that there is an automatic relationship between obesity and poverty. This relationship is a new observable fact, which, therefore, requires to be examined in the light of current social, economic and political developments.

Social construction refers to a conceptual framework that gives emphasis to the cultural as well as historical characteristics of phenomena extensively thought to be solely natural. The emphasis is on how meanings of phenomena do not automatically inhere in the phenomena themselves, however, grows via interaction in a social framework. In other words, social construction studies how individuals, as well as groups, contribute to creating perceived social reality as well as knowledge (Berger and Luckman 1966). How a social constructionist approaches an illness is ingrained in the broadly recognized conceptual difference between disease, that is, the biological condition and illness, that is, the social meaning of the condition (Eisenberg 1977).&nbsp.