Migration and Cultural Change: A Role for Gender and Social Networks?

From the Introduction: To incorporate the insights from the literature on gender and migration, we focus upon three key concepts that have emerged regarding the role of social networks, households, and communities for affecting migration processes. The three key concepts we interrogate are: “social embeddedness” (Portes and Sensenbrenner 1993), “circular and cumulative causation” (Massey 1990), and “relative deprivation” (Stark 1991). We propose considering these three concepts through the lens of a third area of research, the sociology of culture, and we draw upon ideas about identity formation, trust, and normative expectations. Our empirical examples come primarily from Thailand where we draw upon both secondary and primary data but also from secondary data from Latin America and the Caribbean migrant experiences. In our effort to demonstrate that social networks and gender are essential elements for understanding migration and cultural change, our discussion refers to international, internal, permanent, and temporary migration

Reporting Risk, Producing Prejudice How News Reporting on Obesity Shapes Attitudes about Health Risk, Policy, and Prejudice

News reporting on research studies may influence attitudes about health risk, support for public health policies, or attitudes towards people labeled as unhealthy or at risk for disease. Across five experiments (N = 2123) we examined how different news framings of obesity research influence these attitudes. We exposed participants to either a control condition, a news report on a study portraying obesity as a public health crisis, a news report on a study suggesting that obesity may not be as much of a problem as previously thought, or an article discussing weight-based discrimination. Compared to controls, exposure to the public health crisis article did not increase perception of obesity-related health risks but did significantly increase the expression of antifat prejudice in four out of seven comparisons. Across studies, compared to controls, participants who read an article about weight-based discrimination were less likely to agree that overweight constitutes a public health crisis or to support various obesity policies. Effects of exposure to an article questioning the health risks associated with overweight and obesity were mixed. These findings suggest that news reports on the obesity epidemic and, by extension, on public health crises commonly blamed on personal behavior may unintentionally activate prejudice

Does This BMI Make Me Look Fat?: Defining the bounds of "normal" weight in the U.S. and France

My work fills these holes in the literature by examining how medical science and news media define the upper and lower limits of “normal” body weight and how they discuss underweight/ overweight issues, eating disorders, and obesity. The talk I will be giving at the Center for the Study of Women next month examines cross-issue and cross-national differences in how the U.S. and French news media frame eating disorders and overweight/obesity as medical issues and public health priorities