?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Adc&rft.title=The+cultural+psychology+of+obesity%3A+diffusion+of+pathological+norms+from+Western+to+East+Asian+societies&rft.creator=Wallace%2C+Rodrick&rft.creator=Wallace%2C+Deborah&rft.subject=Cognitive+Psychology&rft.description=We+examine+the+accelerating+worldwide+obesity+epidemic+using+a+mathematical+model+relating+a+cognitive+hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal+axis+tuned+by+embedding+cultural+context+to+a+signal+of+chronic%2C+structured%2C+psychosocial+threat.+The+obesity+epidemic+emerges+as+a+distorted+physiological+image+of+ratcheting+social+pathology+involving+massive%2C+policy-driven%2C+economic+and+social+'structural+adjustment'+causing+increasing+individual%2C+family%2C+and+community+insecurity.+The+resulting%2C+broadly+developmental%2C+disorder%2C+while+stratified+by+expected+divisions+of+class%2C+ethnicity%2C+and+culture%2C+is+nonetheless+relentlessly+engulfing+even+affluent+majority+populations+across+the+globe.+The+progression+of+analogous+epidemics+in+affluent+Western+and+East+Asian+socieities+is+particularly+noteworthy+since+these+enjoy+markedly+different+cultural+structures+known+to+influence+even+such+fundamental+psychophysical+phenomena+as+change+blindness.+Indeed%2C+until+recently+population+patterns+of+obesity+were+quite+different+for+these+cultures.+We+attribute+the+entrainment+of+East+Asian+societies+into+the+obesity+epidemic+to+the+diffusion+of+Western+socioeconomic+practices+whose+imposed+resource+uncertainties+and+exacerbation+of+social+and+economic+divisions+constitute+powerful+threat+signals.+We+find+that+individual-oriented+'therapeutic'+interventions+will+be+largely+ineffective+since+the+therapeutic+process+itself+(e.g.+relinace+on+drug+treatments)+embodies+the+very+threats+causing+the+epidemic.&rft.date=2007-01&rft.type=Preprint&rft.type=NonPeerReviewed&rft.format=application%2Fpdf&rft.identifier=http%3A%2F%2Fcogprints.org%2F5362%2F1%2Fobesity3.pdf&rft.identifier=++Wallace%2C+Rodrick+and+Wallace%2C+Deborah++(2007)+The+cultural+psychology+of+obesity%3A+diffusion+of+pathological+norms+from+Western+to+East+Asian+societies.++%5BPreprint%5D+++++&rft.relation=http%3A%2F%2Fcogprints.org%2F5362%2F