What makes poor people fat and rich people thin?

At an upcoming conference at the University of Chicago, researchers will investigate why obesity is now a bigger threat to poor people than starvation in the United States, and is growing in danger across the world. As scientists declare a “global epidemic of fat,” the University’s Center for Gender Studies will host the Obesity and Poverty Conference on Friday and Saturday, March 1 and 2, to address the sometimes surprising cultural and medical reasons why the poor in post-industrial nations are now more likely than the rich to be dangerously overweight. This interdisciplinary conference will bring together doctors, scientists and humanists to analyze a paradoxical new world situation.

Participants will debate the connections between fat, economics and human rights, explore the cultural patterns behind weight, and show how obesity affects children (the ones most in danger of obesity in developing nations), and what can be done to treat it. The conference runs Friday, March 1, from noon to 5 p.m. at the Franke Institute for the Humanities, at 1100 E. 57th St., and Saturday, March 2, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Classics 10, 1010 E. 59th St. For further information about this conference and other Center for Gender Studies programs, contact Gina Olson at (773) 702-9936 or golsonAuchicago.edu or visit humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/cgs/. A list of speakers and topics follows.

Keynote Speakers:

• Dr. Robert Kushner
  Professor of Medicine, Northwestern University, Medical Director, Wellness Institute, Northwestern Memorial Hospital
  “A Lifestyle Patterns Approach to Obesity Treatment”

• Peter Stearns
  Provost, George Mason University
  “American or Western?: Using Historical Comparison on the Obesity Crisis”

• Sander Gilman
  Distinguished Professor of the Liberal Arts & Sciences and of Medicine, University of Illinois-Chicago
  “The Obesity Project: Cultural Models of Explanation in Obesity Studies”

Panelists:

• Laura Kipnis
  Department of Film & Media Studies, Northwestern University
  “Defending Fat”

• Dr. Diane S. Lauderdale
  Department of Health Studies, University of Chicago
  “Could Changing Sleep Patterns Contribute to the Obesity Problem?”

• Dr. Rebecca Lipton
  Department of Pediatrics, University of Chicago
  “The Consequences of Obesity in Minority Children: What Can Be Done?”

• Clare Pentecost
  Department of Photography & the Humanities, Art Institute of Chicago
  TBA

• Jeffrey Sobal
  Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University
  TBA

• Candace Vogler
  Department of Philosophy, University of Chicago
  TBA

• Dr. Youfa Wang
  Dept. of Human Nutrition, Dept. of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, University of Illinois-Chicago
  “Trends of Childhood Obesity and Underweight in the United States, Brazil, China and Russia”

Moderators:

• Lauren Berlant
  Director, Center for Gender Studies, Dept. of English, University of Chicago

• Dr. Virginia Chang
  Dept. of Sociology, University of Chicago