ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a background and analysis on the role of the alternative food movement and the complete streets movement as potential remedies to the obesity epidemic. In the United States, the media began reporting an obesity epidemic around the same time, following a 1999 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) article titled The Spread of the Obesity Epidemic in the United States, 1991-1998. Spurred by theoretical and empirical advancements introduced by Brown University's Contested Illness Research Group, work in the field has drawn variously from the sociology of health and illness, social studies of science and, of course, social movements scholarship. Passed in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) were being taken seriously by the early 2000s. In particular, 2004 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study presented data to show that poor diet and lack of exercise was nearing tobacco as a primary cause of death, responsible for 400,000 deaths in 2000.
