In the crowded and busy arena of obesity and fat studies, there is a lack of attention to the lived experiences of people, how and why they eat what they do, and how people in cross-cultural settings understand risk, health, and bodies. This volume addresses the lacuna by drawing on ethnographic methods and analytical emic explorations in order to consider the impact of cultural difference, embodiment, and local knowledge on understanding obesity. It is through this reconstruction of how obesity and fatness are studied and understood that a new discussion will be introduced and a new set of analytical explorations about obesity research and the effectiveness of obesity interventions will be established.

Megan B. McCullough is a medical anthropologist whose research specializes in the cultural study of provider behavior change, the context of health care practices, pharmaceutical care, embodiment, and patient-centered experiences of chronic conditions. She is a Research Health Scientist at the Department of Veteran Affairs and a Visiting Scholar at Brandeis University.

Jessica A. Hardin is a PhD Candidate at Brandeis University. Her research focuses on how metabolic disorders including diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular diseases are spiritualized in their etiologies by evangelical Christians in independent Samoa. She has lectured at Brandeis University and the National University of Samoa as well as worked as an applied anthropologist at the Institute for Community Health in Cambridge, Massachusetts.