ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on the extensive research literature documenting patterning of obesity by socioeconomic factors, within and between countries worldwide. The chapter proceeds as follows. I rst review what is known about the association between socioeconomic factors and obesity, based on existing reviews. I then extract key summary points, highlighting variation by gender, age (adults and children), over time, country’s development status, and indicator of socioeconomic status (SES). Summary points are then interpreted with reference to Bourdieu’s multidimensional theory of social class and to four frameworks (behavioral, material, psychosocial, and neo-material) that have been used to understand social inequalities in health more generally.
