科研之友
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摘要
Scholars in science studies have coined the concept artifactual constructivism' to denote the techniques, laboratory practices, conventions, observational methods, instrumentation and measurements that produce scientific facts. Applying artifactual constructivism to biophysical phenomena is not to deny that a particular phenomenon materially exists, but to highlight that it can only be known through the specific tools and techniques of measurement that bring it into being. This article examines some of the tools and techniques that have been deployed to understand the growth in American body sizes to argue that the obesity epidemic' is an artefact of particular epidemiological measures and conventions. It is not that they are wrong; it is that these tools can paint the picture in ways that may over-dramatize some elements and under-specify others and can also foreclose other problem conceptualizations. It will give specific focus to the use of the Body Mass Index to measure adiposity, the categorizations of BMI to determine rates of obesity, the attributable fraction technique to establish excess deaths and the use of the bell curve to define normality. The article will argue more generally that predominant ways of measuring the obesity epidemic inscribe notions of normative size that are based in averages and intensify the use of size as the litmus test for health or well-being.
- 出版日期2013-9-1
