INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 2. DOG EAT BONE, MEN EAT MEAT

who we are or want to be - with hairstyles, tattoos, make-up, piercings, clothing, as well as with size and shape. Body ideals from thin to curvy, descriptions of apple and pear shapes, Y-shapes and lean shapes, `spare tire' and `six pack' are examples of interpretations of our bodies; they are also examples of the social meaning and stigmatization we attach to it. The human body thus is a symbol through which we communicate. It has been of academic interest in cultural studies, sociology, philosophy and history since the twentieth century (see Gremillion, 2005 for a comprehensive overview). The list of its researchers contains notable individuals from Norbert Elias, Marcel Mauss, Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu to Judith Butler and Susan Bordo (Rocha Teixeira, 2017, p. 7).

What constitutes the ideal, desirable, or attractive body has historically been one of the most varied aspects of human culture (Brown & Konner, 1987; Sobal & Stunkard, 1989). In much of the industrialized West (. . . ) slimness is associated with health, beauty, intelligence, youth, wealth, attractiveness, grace, self-discipline, and goodness (. . . ), [f]atness and obesity are by contrast associated with ugliness, sexlessness, and undesirability but also with specically moral failings, such as a lack of self-control, social irresponsibility, ineptitude, and laziness (Brewis, 2011, p. 269). Yet, anthropo-logical data on cultural norms in a range of societies suggest that, historically, many groups have had a preference for larger bodies especially in women (Becker, 1995; Pope-noe, 2005; Sobo, 1993), and many also have no concept of excess fat as a bad thing (Brewis, 2011, p. 86).

Beyond the anthropological interest and the appreciation of human cultural diver-sity there is also an economic reason why we should better understand varying body preferences: since the 1980s obesity rates have been rising globally - in some countries they have doubled. The World Health Organization (WHO) argues that an escalating global epidemic of overweight and obesity -globesity is taking over many parts of the world. If immediate action is not taken, millions will suer from an array of serious health disorders (. . . ) that aects virtually all age and socioeconomic groups (World Health Organization, 2019). Globesity comes at tremendous economic cost: Each year billions are spent on obesity related diseases, or lost due to a decrease of work capacity, shortened life span, and absenteeism due to illness. Researchers agree that changes to the human environment have greatly contributed to the spread of obesity, like changes in diets, a sedentary lifestyle, and urbanization. Yet many public health interventions have failed to produce measurable results, and obesity levels have continued to rise (Brewis, 2011, pp. 2 - 11). If we understand what causes it, then why are we so unable to cope with it?

CHAPTER 2. DOG EAT BONE, MEN EAT MEAT. 2.1. INTRODUCTION Health promotion strategies often focus on educating about the risks of obesity; yet they aim to induce individual behavioral change. This approach has proven unsuccess-ful: 'Fully' informing individuals about health and health risk does not necessarily lead to a change in health behavior and a causal link between health beliefs and health behavior cannot be assumed (Whitehead & Russell, 2004, pp. 164 - 165, Thompson

& Kumar, 2011).

We follow anthropologist Alexandra Brewis (2011) and argue that researchers un-derstand obesity from a medical perspective, but not as a social or political phe-nomenon: The body is a commodity, an articulation of capital, power, and social mobility and the encoding of cultural values (Bourdieu, 1984). It is shaped by so-ciety just as much as it is shaped by biological factors. What we nd attractive is learned in a social process which allows us to aliate with others, achieve membership with a preferred group and distance us from disliked groups (McCabe et al., 2013).

Further, Elliott (2007) and Rawlins (2008) show that in industrialized countries this

`embodiment' overlaps with the political sphere, when being a 'good citizen' becomes associated with being a t citizen, while the fat body becomes a symbol of the `failed citizen'.

Varying body ideals may simply be rooted in evolution and economic development:

When food is scarce and skinniness the norm, larger bodies are valued highly and as-sociated with economic prosperity. With economic development and changes to the human environment, food becomes abundant and preferences shift: Skinniness is val-ued, because in a world of abundance it is harder to attain - and larger bodies become associated with lower socio-economic status (SES) (Sobal & Stunkard, 1989; Ezzati et al., 2005; McLaren, 2007). Additionally, globalized (Western) media is reaching all parts of the world - spreading the stigmas, ideals and eating disorders that for the longest time have been found predominantly in economically well-to-do countries (Sussman & Truong, 2011; Haytko et al., 2014; Becker et al., 2002; Schooler, 2008;

Council & Placek, 2014; Becker et al., 2011).

Does this mean there will soon be a global thin body ideal, once all countries have passed an unknown threshold of economic development? Indeed, negative ideas about obesity are spreading and already permeate traditionally fat-positive societies (Brewis, 2011; Bakhshi, 2011). So, why bother about obesity policy if soon everyone will want to be skinny? The answers are obvious: Even in economically advanced countries obesity rates are no reason to be enthusiastic: In Germany 22% of all adults above the age of 18 are obese, in Australia and the United States these numbers are up to 29%

and 36%, respectively. So even if living in an economically successful country leads to

2.1. INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 2. DOG EAT BONE, MEN EAT MEAT.

idealizing skinniness, it does not necessarily mean that people live up to these ideals.

But more than that, as Randall (2012) writes with respect to African Americans in the US: too many experts who are involved in the discussion of obesity don't understand something crucial about black women and fat: many black women are fat because we want to be.

We argue that this is also a reason why rates of obesity dier not only between coun-tries, but also within the same country or even within the same community (Brewis, 2011, pp. 3-4). Dierent ethnic groups may have dierent associations with large bod-ies and there may be a dierence between a medically ideal size and a culturally ideal size. While in Western countries associations with fat are negative, in other societies being large may symbolize group membership, resistance against a global homogeniza-tion of beauty or the dissociahomogeniza-tion of oneself from others: And it's not only aesthetics that make black fat dierent. It's politics too. (. . . ) [F]at black women can be a rounded opposite of the t black slave, (. . . ) (Randall, 2012; see Bakhshi, 2011 for a comprehensive overview of the role of culture in body image). Resistance to prescribed medically ideal bodies is present also in other industrialized societies, especially in the context of health campaigns (Thompson & Kumar, 2011; Crossley, 2002).

A large part of the literature studies body preferences and stigmatization in the U.S., focusing on African Americans and ethnic minorities (D. B. Wilson et al., 1994;

Cunningham et al., 1995; Parker et al., 1995; Gilbert et al., 2009; Gray & Frederick, 2012; Gentles-Peart, 2018; Greenberg & LaPorte, 1996; Caldwell et al., 1997; Altabe, 1998; Cachelin et al., 2002; A. Roberts et al., 2006; Cheney, 2011; Ali et al., 2013;

Webb et al., 2013; Hart et al., 2016).

Becker (1995), Hardin (2015), McCabe et al. (2012), as well as McCabe and Riccia-rdelli (2003) focus on stigma and body preferences in the Pacic and Asian countries, while Brewis and Wutich (2014) and Brewis (2011) study stigmatization in interna-tional comparison. Dressler et al. (2008) and Dressler et al. (2012) look at body images in Brazil. Pompper et al. (2007) is one of few studies analyzing male body concepts, and a few studies compare body images of females and males, showing that females often prefer slimmer shapes than males (Ata et al., 2007; Murnen, 2011).

The literature on body preferences in the Caribbean countries is limited (Council

& Placek, 2014, Commonwealth of Dominica; Ragoobirsingh et al., 2004, Jamaica;

Simeon et al., 2001, Simeon et al., 2003, Allen, 1998, Ramberan, Austin, & Nichols, 2006, Trinidad and Tobago) and like the majority of the literature in general, primarily focuses on female adolescents. We want to add to the literature by giving an in-depth analysis of body preferences and stigmatization in Trinidad, using a sample that covers

CHAPTER 2. DOG EAT BONE, MEN EAT MEAT. 2.1. INTRODUCTION a wider range of factors than commonly found.

Understanding body preferences in the Caribbean, especially in Trinidad and To-bago, is important for a number of reasons: First, obesity is a serious health issue aecting the lives of a huge number of Trinidadians. Obesity rates in the country are among the highest in the Caribbean (36%, PAHO/WHO Trinidad and Tobago, 2019) and the country's overall percentage of deaths due to Chronic Non-communicable Dis-eases (CNCDs), at 60%, is the highest within the region (Government of the Repub-lic of Trinidad and Tobago. Ministry of Health, 2012). Further, although in 2006 only 5.6% of the total population was multi-dimensionally poor, deprivations in health contributed 94.3% to overall poverty (besides education and living standards, United Nations Development Programme, 2013, p. 161). Understanding what drives obesity in Trinidad will be necessary to develop adequate policy.

Second, at the beginning of this century Simeon et al. (2001) argued that culture was one of the driving forces behind the epidemiological transition of the country, shifting from infectious and nutrient-deciency diseases to non-communicable diseases.

They showed that international ideals inuenced the desired body size of adolescents, but that this did not lead to a preference of slim or underweight body shapes, but rather to preferring normal and overweight sizes, especially in males. Allen (1998) investigated the phenomenon of getting in shape for Carnival and how local tness culture and body images are permeated by both, ambivalence and resistance towards the constructions of Western bodies, sometimes incorporating it, sometimes defying it.

These ndings contradict the theory that Western media spreads skinny images and replaces traditional body ideals, yet we do not know if this aects all age, gender and ethnic groups alike.

Further, many studies concerning minorities cannot disentangle the eects of SES and ethnicity, since the two are often closely linked. According to the World Bank, since 2006 Trinidad and Tobago has been considered a high income country in terms of Gross National Income (GNI) and by the standards of the Human Development Index (HDI); but the country's wealth heavily depends on oil and inequality adjusted measures tell a dierent story: the HDI value drops from 0.78 to 0.66 and the country's GINI coecient, as a measure of inequality, remains high at around 0.40. Hence, the range of income groups and SES is wide and equally so for both of the two main ethnic groups. If there is an eect of economic development on body ideals, then ideals of rather privileged groups who have beneted from the country's economic success should dier from the ideals of those who have yet to prot from global economic integration.

Although in many aspects the two ethnic groups seem very similar, the literature