Book gives the skinny on wide-ranging obesity research

Along with a sharp rise in recent decades in worldwide obesity rates has come a flood of research on the subject -- more than 66,000 papers in the past 10 years, according to one estimate.

For researchers who study diet, physical activity and obesity, the assorted findings can be too much to digest, as they struggle to stay current with new evidence from disciplines outside their own, potentially missing opportunities to prevent or treat obesity.

A new book, "The Oxford Handbook of The Social Science of Obesity" (Oxford University Press), by a Cornell economist is meant as a "Rosetta stone" for researchers in various fields that study the issue. Edited by John Cawley, professor of policy analysis and management and of economics in the College of Human Ecology, the 912-page volume examines the causes and consequences of obesity from seven social science perspectives: epidemiology, demography, anthropology, psychology, sociology, economics and political science.

"It offers something that has never before existed: primers on the study of obesity from a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives, written by the most accomplished and distinguished researchers," Cawley said. "This handbook will bring researchers up to date on the relevant research in their own discipline and also allow them to quickly and easily understand the cutting-edge research being produced in other fields."

Though targeted at faculty and students, Cawley hopes the text will also influence physicians, nutritionists, policymakers and others with a stake in lowering obesity rates. "The goal is that this will lead to cross-pollination of research across fields, leading to new hybrid strains of interdisciplinary research, more rational public policies and more cost-effective methods of prevention and treatment," he added.

In a review, the British medical journal The Lancet praised the handbook as "an accessible crash course … for those who want to master the last two decades of social science research on obesity by reading a single volume."

Along with Cawley, Cornell professors who contributed chapters to the volume include: Sahara Byrne and Jeff Niederdeppe, assistant professors of communication; Jeffery Sobal, professor of nutritional sciences; and Brian Wansink, the John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing.

Ted Boscia is assistant director of for the College of Human Ecology.