Obésité, corpulence et souci de minceur: inégalités sociales en France et aux États-Unis

Obesity is not comparable in France and in the United States, from its width, its evolution, its age and gender distribution. Between 1970 and 2000, obesity progressed very quickly in the United States, whereas we can observe a stability in France until the middle of the 1990′s, then a deterioration. For as much, for 30 years, the relations between obesity among women - and more largely corpulence - and social hierarchy have been marked in the two countries: obesity concerns more the people - especially the women - of the working-class categories, the least rich and the least graduate people. With equal corpulence, people of the working-class categories, even if they share some of the standards of thinness, are much less concerned about excesses of weight: the women most touched by obesity belong to the groups where the average corpulence is highest and where the attention to weight is the least strong. A preventive policy of public health concerning the members of theses working-class categories could be a good objective.