This review considers a variety of perspectives on overweight and obesity (OW/obesity), including measurement and classification; prevalence and changes in prevalence in recent years; genetic, biological, medical, individual, and social correlates of OW/obesity; and treatment approaches. Despite increased attention, OW/obesity is escalating in prevalence worldwide, and the causes are exceedingly complex. A range of innovative studies, including basic research on gut microflora, dietary composition, pharmacologic interventions, and surgical procedures, is generating findings with potential for future prevention and treatment of OW/obesity. Social system changes such as school programs and the awareness of the roles of personal, family, health provider, and cultural experiences related to OW/obesity have also gained traction for vital prevention and treatment efforts over the past decade.

Recent evidence suggests that kinship stigma—the experience of being or feeling stigmatized by family members—arises in the stories of people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Adopting Goffman’s definition of stigma as “an attribute which is deeply discrediting,” we used hermeneutic (interpretive) phenomenology to further explore the meaning of kinship stigma for people with IBD and reveal its significance. In total, 18 unstructured interviews took place in participants’ own homes in the United Kingdom, between July 2015 and April 2016. Transcripts were analyzed using a hermeneutic method to reveal three relational themes and one constitutive pattern. Referring to relevant literature, the presence and impact of kinship stigma on people with IBD is revealed. Kinship stigma—experienced as and meaning a lack of acknowledgment—may have wide-ranging implications for health and social care professionals caring for persons with IBD or other chronic illness and their families.

Obesity continues to affect African Americans in epidemic proportions, particularly among women and adolescent females. Perceptions, beliefs, behaviors, and body sizes of adolescents are associated with those of their mothers, yet little is known about the transgenerational meanings and experiences of obese African American adolescent girls and their mothers. An interpretive phenomenological study was conducted with seven African American adolescents between the ages of 11 and 17, and their adult female caregivers. Audio-taped interviews were transcribed and analyzed by a multicultural interpretive team. Two constitutive patterns and associated themes were identified. One pattern, 'Framing: sizing it up; sizing it down', with its three associated themes is presented. Mothers and daughters are engaged in multiple common practices in which they self-define body size, while protecting their self-esteem and self-image. This pattern illustrates how the women and girls created an image of their bodies as they confronted and acknowledged their self-perceptions, compared themselves to others in their environment, and evaluated themselves against specific parameters of acceptable size.

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