In view of the counterclaims about the leveling off of the epidemic in
Western nations such extrapolations can be contested. In fact, this counter-
claim is increasingly adhered to. For instance, in 2012 the US National
Institutes of Health recognized that obesity levels stabilized since the late
1990s.^13 Also in 2012, in the Netherlands obesity expert Seidell recognized
that prevalence of overweight and obesity is virtually stable since 1999. At
his request the title of a blog post is changed from “overweight increases”
into “overweight stabilizes.”^14
THE DOMINANT PUBLIC HEALTH PERSPECTIVE:
EXPLAINING AND PREVENTING OBESITY
As stated above, obesity as a medicalized problem exists both at an indivi-
dual and a social level. The idea of an “obesogenic environment” has been
developed very recently (Dagevos & Munnichs, 2007; Guinhouya, 2011;
Lake, Townsend, & Alvanides, 2010; Lee, McAlexander, & Banda, 2010).
In contrast, the individualistic notion of an energy imbalance can already
be found among the ancient Greeks (Gilman, 2010). It is important to
recognize that the social or environmental notion explicitly builds upon
the individual one. Virtually all communications about obesity explain the
increase in weight of individual citizens through this idea, which holds
that if people were to consume only as many calories as they expand
through physical activities, then they would always weight the same.
People that have to lose weight should either eat less, exercise more, or do
both until they reach the medically approved “normal weight.” This mes-
sage, for instance, is the foundation of the England and Wales
Change4Lifeprogram that calls on people to “eat well, move more, and
live longer” (see http://www.nhs.uk/Change4Life/Pages/why-change-for-
life.aspx).
With this millennia old explanation for individual obesity firmly in
placeas a “basic model” the growing numbers of obese citizens led to the
question in what ways modern societies differ from earlier ones?Basham
etal. (2007, p. 35) cite a study tracing the explanation for obesity in differ-
ent editions of a medical handbook from 1927 to 2000: “Despite the
unwavering nature of this basic model, an evolving set of causal factors is
superimposed. Early models invoke aberrant individual activities, such as
habitual overeating, while later editions drop these factors in favour of
genetic and environmental effects.” Stressing the interplay of human
Obesity as Disease and Deviance 125