Obesity as a Social Issue

Obesity as a Social Issue
Individual problems such as addictions, illnesses and mental depression stalk us throughout our lives, but there is more to addictions, illnesses and mental depression than meets the eye. A good example of this theory is obesity. Obesity in Australia is turning into a problem and as the rates of obesity increase each year, the larger the problem expands. According to sociologist, C. Mills, problems can be divided into either troubles or issues and more often than not, a problem which is seen as a person trouble, when looked at globally, is in fact a social issue. This idea is referred to by C.Mills as the sociological imagination.

The sociological imagination according to C. Wright Mills is an idea which gives an individual the ability to understand the connection between a problem and the history of that problem (Mills, 2000).He states that the sociological imagination is “A quality of mind that will help use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves” Mills (2000:5). The distinct different between the two terms lies upon the ideology that troubles are problems which are personal and directly affect an individual and their milieu (Mills, 2000)rather than issues which are “to do with matters that transcend these local environments of the individual and the range of his inner life “. Furthermore, the sociological imagination in a nutshell is a way of thinking which links the events that occur in people’s everyday lives to more than their individual surroundings and individual effects.

Mills also further explains to say that all morals and codes of ethics practiced in a society exist as according...

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...ournal articles support the thesis that Obesity is more than an individual’s problems and it affects more than their personal surroundings. It however affects nations economically, began the phenomena of “Globesity” and has been influenced by the body conscious era of time in which we live in. These are ties which we have woven

Works Cited

Crossley, N. 2004. Fat is a Sociological Issue: Obesity Rates in Late Modern, Body-Conscious' Societies. Social Theory & Health, 2 (3), pp. 222--253.
Mcnaughton, D. 2013. ‘Diabesity’down under: overweight and obesity as cultural signifiers for type 2 diabetes mellitus. Critical public health, 23 (3), pp. 274--288.
Mills, C. W. 2000. The sociological imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press (orig pub 1959)
Townend, L. 2009. The moralizing of obesity: A new name for an old sin?. Critical social policy, 29 (2), pp. 171--190.