Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Nathan Denton
Keyword(s):  
Adipose Tissue ◽  
Healthcare System ◽  
Body Shape ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Important Relationship ◽  
Social Meanings ◽  
Fat Acceptance ◽  
The Masses

Fat (i.e., adipose tissue) is one of the most misunderstood, controversial organs in the body. Not a day goes by without it making the headlines or ‘breaking’ the Internet. Reports about the world’s healthcare system being crippled by preventable obesity-related diseases jostle against advocates’ calls for fat acceptance, while the masses witness improbably sculpted bodies strut along the red carpet and photographs of celebrities supposedly falling off the ‘slim’ wagon. Fat means very different things to different people and is routinely conceptualized in everything from biological, medical, epidemiological, social, economic, and aesthetic, to moral terms. This multi-dimensionality makes it inherently fascinating, controversial, and emotive, but the abundance of studies and conflicting narratives have also resulted in great confusion and uncertainty about fat. Waisted provides an opportunity to re-centre our understanding by reviewing the biology of adipose tissue, exploring its important relationship to body shape and metabolic health, and considering the myriad social meanings of this enigmatic organ.

A Brief History of Body Shape

2021 ◽  
pp. 7-46
Author(s):  
Nathan Denton
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
Body Shape ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Meanings ◽  
History Of ◽  
Winning Strategies ◽  
Physical Features ◽  
Over Time

Like the vast numbers of other organisms that roam, or have roamed, the earth, the modern human represents a finely honed tool—one forged through millennia as it struggled to survive and thrive in more or less unaccommodating environments. Displaying the battle scars and winning strategies of its brutal, but ultimately triumphant battle against the elements, our bodies hold vast amounts of encrypted information that describe our biological lineage. In addition to the countless mechanisms that have evolved to support our existence, however, the human body is somewhat unique in that it exhibits striking permanent physiological differences that identify and define the sexes. The biology that arises from, and the social meanings attributed to, these physical features penetrate deep into the heart of what it means to be human, as well as a man or a woman. Before delving into the biology of fat, we must first therefore consider the history of body shape. This chapter begins by discussing several explanations for why the modern human body might have evolved the shape it has, and why the body differs between the sexes. Building from this foundation, it examines how societal attitudes toward body shape are ascribed and their shift over time.

scholarly journals DNA Methylation as a Marker of Body Shape in Premenopausal Women

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adeline Divoux ◽  
Alexey Eroshkin ◽  
Edina Erdos ◽  
Katalin Sandor ◽  
Timothy F. Osborne ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Dna Methylation ◽  
Adipose Tissue ◽  
Body Fat ◽  
Body Shape ◽  
Metabolic Diseases ◽  
Premenopausal Women ◽  
Fat Distribution ◽  
The Body ◽  
Fat Depots ◽  
Increased Risk

Preferential accumulation of fat in the gluteo-femoral (GF) depot (pear shape) rather than in the abdominal (A) depot (apple shape), protects against the development of metabolic diseases but the underlying molecular mechanism is still unknown. Recent data, including our work, suggest that differential epigenetic marking is associated with regulation of genes attributed to distinct fat distribution. Here, we aimed to compare the genomic DNA methylation signatures between apple and pear-shaped premenopausal women. To investigate the contribution of upper and lower body fat, we used paired samples of A-FAT and GF-FAT, analyzed on the BeadChip Methylation Array and quantified the differentially methylated sites between the 2 groups of women. We found unique DNA methylation patterns within both fat depots that are significantly different depending on the body fat distribution. Around 60% of the body shape specific DNA methylation sites identified in adipose tissue are maintained ex vivo in cultured preadipocytes. As it has been reported before in other cell types, we found only a hand full of genes showing coordinated differential methylation and expression levels. Finally, we determined that more than 50% of the body shape specific DNA methylation sites could also be detected in whole blood derived DNA. These data reveal a strong DNA methylation program associated with adipose tissue distribution with the possibility that a simple blood test could be used as a predictive diagnostic indicator of young women who are at increased risk for progressing to the apple body shape with a higher risk of developing obesity related complications.Clinical Trial Registration:https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02728635 and https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02226640, identifiers NCT02728635 and NCT02226640.

scholarly journals Subject and network: potential and political limits of the (un)making of bodies online

Cadernos Pagu ◽  
2015 ◽  
pp. 13-30
Author(s):  
Remedios Zafra
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Electronic Devices ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Subjective Awareness ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Meanings ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Symbolic Construction

This essay concerns subjective construction on the Internet, the potential and limitations for the deconstruction of the social meanings of the body (there where, interfaced and displaced by the machine, it is made, but factitiously). Potentials and limits also for the ideation of camouflaged forms of repetition and symbolic repression present new technological scenarios. In this text, screens, as the material node of cyberspace, dress us and carry a new complexity in the identity and subjective constitution, to which are added the different spaces of the online relationship (such as social networks) which territorialize the Internet today; spaces that we think condition the presentation and representation of the "I" in its relationship with others and the constitution of desire and possible collectivities. The starting point will be the body as a symbolic construction, with its ways of seeing, its identity and social filters and its subjective pretensions; but also the subject from a materialist position that emphasizes the technologically located and amplified body, conditioned by the biopolitical design of the most common electronic devices of recent decades. From them we analyze some of the points of tension, possibilities and political conditionalities for subjective awareness and practice on the Internet.

scholarly journals ADDITIONAL ABDOMINAL MEASUREMENTS ARE A USEFUL TOOL TO EVALUATE BODY COMPOSITION IN OBESE WOMEN

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-299
Author(s):  
Andresa de Toledo TRIFFONI-MELO ◽  
Flávia de Andrade MONTE-ALEGRE ◽  
Vania Aparecida LEANDRO-MERHI ◽  
Rosa Wanda DIEZ-GARCIA
Keyword(s):  
Body Composition ◽  
Adipose Tissue ◽  
Fat Mass ◽  
Body Shape ◽  
The Body ◽  
Anthropometric Measurements ◽  
Obese Women ◽  
Fat Percentage ◽  
Bioelectric Impedance Analysis ◽  
Umbilical Scar

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: During weight gain, most of the excess adipose tissue accumulates in the trunk. This alters the body shape and makes collection of anthropometric measurements, especially waist circumference (WC), difficult. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the sensitivity and applicability of additional abdominal measurements in order to assess body composition of obese women. METHODS: A total of 30 women between 20 and 50 years of age and BMI above 30 kg/m² were assessed. Three WC measurements, were performed: at the umbilical scar designated as WC1 and at 8 and 16 cm above the umbilical scar, designated as WC2, and WC3 respectively. The correlation (r) between these anthropometric measurements and their sum was assessed against the parameters fat mass (FM), free fat mass (FFM), body fat percentage (%BF), and trunk fat percentage (%TF), obtained by total and trunk segmental bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA) as well as by the golden standard total and trunk dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). RESULTS: The measurements WC1, WC2, WC3, and their sum correlated strongly and moderately with the parameters FM, FFM, and %BF in total BIA and in both total DXA and trunk DXA. CONCLUSION: The results demonstrated a robust correlation between the sum of the three WC measurements and total and trunk DXA in obese women suggesting that such measurements may be a good indicator of body and trunk fat in women, actually superior to BIA results. The use of these three measurements may be an alternative for the assessment of body and trunk fat, in those cases in which the body shape due to adipose tissue trunk accumulation makes accurate classical measurement (WC1) difficult.

Updating long-held assumptions about fat stigma: For women, body shape plays a critical role

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaimie Krems ◽  
Steven L. Neuberg
Keyword(s):  
Body Shape ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
The Body ◽  
Theoretical Assumption ◽  
Obesity Stigma ◽  
Obese Female ◽  
Three Samples ◽  
Female Bodies ◽  
Different Parts ◽  
Fat Stigma

Heavier bodies—particularly female bodies—are stigmatized. Such fat stigma is pervasive, painful to experience, and may even facilitate weight gain, thereby perpetuating the obesity-stigma cycle. Leveraging research on functionally distinct forms of fat (deposited on different parts of the body), we propose that body shape plays an important but largely underappreciated role in fat stigma, above and beyond fat amount. Across three samples varying in participant ethnicity (White and Black Americans) and nation (U.S., India), patterns of fat stigma reveal that, as hypothesized, participants differently stigmatized equally-overweight or -obese female targets as a function of target shape, sometimes even more strongly stigmatizing targets with less rather than more body mass. Such findings suggest value in updating our understanding of fat stigma to include body shape and in querying a predominating, but often implicit, theoretical assumption that people simply view all fat as bad (and more fat as worse).

Choir

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Pryce
Keyword(s):  
Formal Group ◽  
Body Awareness ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Contemplative Practice ◽  
Ritual Action ◽  
Important Relationship ◽  
Positive Knowledge

Expanding on the notion of “keeping intention,” introduced in Chapter 2, Chapter 5 shows how contemplative Christians refine their capacity to “keep attention” and cultivate “contemplative senses” through formal group rituals, body awareness techniques, and the construction of aesthetic environments. It notes the contemplative Christian concept of the Body of Christ in which individual bodies and the collective body are perceived as interconnected entities with expandable and contractible boundaries. The chapter describes the monastic Daily Office and how non-monastic contemplatives adapt monastic rites to their lives outside monasteries. Introducing the important relationship between agency and habitus in contemplative practice, the chapter also develops a model that explicates the process of changing perception, called “contemplative transformation,” as an ever-moving ritualization between “posture” (intentional cataphatic ritual action and positive knowledge) and “flow” (apophatic, ambiguous “inner gestures” and “unknowing”).

Feminist Cyber-Artivism, Musicing, and Music Teaching and Learning

2020 ◽  
pp. 291-312
Author(s):  
Marissa Silverman
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Philosophical Investigation ◽  
Music Teaching ◽  
Music Making ◽  
The Voice

This chapter asks an important, yet seemingly illusive, question: In what ways does the internet provide (or not) activist—or, for present purposes “artivist”—opportunities and engagements for musicing, music sharing, and music teaching and learning? According to Asante (2008), an “artivist (artist + activist) uses her artistic talents to fight and struggle against injustice and oppression—by any medium necessary. The artivist merges commitment to freedom and justice with the pen, the lens, the brush, the voice, the body, and the imagination. The artivist knows that to make an observation is to have an obligation” (p. 6). Given this view, can (and should) social media be a means to achieve artivism through online musicing and music sharing, and, therefore, music teaching and learning? Taking a feminist perspective, this chapter interrogates the nature of cyber musical artivism as a potential means to a necessary end: positive transformation. In what ways can social media be a conduit (or hindrance) for cyber musical artivism? What might musicing and music sharing gain (or lose) from engaging with online artivist practices? In addition to a philosophical investigation, this chapter will examine select case studies of online artivist music making and music sharing communities with the above concerns in mind, specifically as they relate to music education.

Chaos in body–vortex interactions

2010 ◽  
Vol 466 (2119) ◽  
pp. 1871-1891 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Roenby ◽  
Hassan Aref
Keyword(s):  
Body Shape ◽  
Mass Density ◽  
Relative Equilibrium ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Point Vortex ◽  
Cylindrical Body ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Motion ◽  
Single Vortex ◽  
Vortex Interactions

The model of body–vortex interactions, where the fluid flow is planar, ideal and unbounded, and the vortex is a point vortex, is studied. The body may have a constant circulation around it. The governing equations for the general case of a freely moving body of arbitrary shape and mass density and an arbitrary number of point vortices are presented. The case of a body and a single vortex is then investigated numerically in detail. In this paper, the body is a homogeneous, elliptical cylinder. For large body–vortex separations, the system behaves much like a vortex pair regardless of body shape. The case of a circle is integrable. As the body is made slightly elliptic, a chaotic region grows from an unstable relative equilibrium of the circle-vortex case. The case of a cylindrical body of any shape moving in fluid otherwise at rest is also integrable. A second transition to chaos arises from the limit between rocking and tumbling motion of the body known in this case. In both instances, the chaos may be detected both in the body motion and in the vortex motion. The effect of increasing body mass at a fixed body shape is to damp the chaos.

scholarly journals Sea stars generate downforce to stay attached to surfaces

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Hermes ◽  
Mitul Luhar
Keyword(s):  
Body Shape ◽  
Control Volume ◽  
Water Channel ◽  
Morphological Plasticity ◽  
The Body ◽  
Sea Star ◽  
Sea Stars ◽  
Hydrodynamic Loads ◽  
Spherical Dome ◽  
Star Models

AbstractIntertidal sea stars often function in environments with extreme hydrodynamic loads that can compromise their ability to remain attached to surfaces. While behavioral responses such as burrowing into sand or sheltering in rock crevices can help minimize hydrodynamic loads, previous work shows that sea stars also alter body shape in response to flow conditions. This morphological plasticity suggests that sea star body shape may play an important hydrodynamic role. In this study, we measured the fluid forces acting on surface-mounted sea star and spherical dome models in water channel tests. All sea star models created downforce, i.e., the fluid pushed the body towards the surface. In contrast, the spherical dome generated lift. We also used Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) to measure the midplane flow field around the models. Control volume analyses based on the PIV data show that downforce arises because the sea star bodies serve as ramps that divert fluid away from the surface. These observations are further rationalized using force predictions and flow visualizations from numerical simulations. The discovery of downforce generation could explain why sea stars are shaped as they are: the pentaradial geometry aids attachment to surfaces in the presence of high hydrodynamic loads.

scholarly journals Changes in Children’s Body Composition and Posture during Puberty Growth

Children ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 288
Author(s):  
Wojciech Rusek ◽  
Joanna Baran ◽  
Justyna Leszczak ◽  
Marzena Adamczyk ◽  
Rafał Baran ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Body Composition ◽  
Adipose Tissue ◽  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Body Mass ◽  
Pelvic Obliquity ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Posture ◽  
Older Children ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Right

The main goal of our study was to determine how the age of children, puberty and anthropometric parameters affect the formation of body composition and faulty body posture development in children. The secondary goal was to determine in which body segments abnormalities most often occur and how gender differentiates the occurrence of adverse changes in children’s body posture and body composition during puberty. The study group consisted of 464 schoolchildren aged from 6–16. Body posture was assessed with the Zebris system. The composition of the body mass was tested with Tanita MC 780 MA body mass analyzer and the body height was measured using a portable stadiometer PORTSTAND 210. The participants were further divided due to the age of puberty. Tanner division was adopted. The cut-off age for girls is ≥10 years and for boys it is ≥12 years. The analyses applied descriptive statistics, the Pearson correlation, stepwise regression analysis and the t-test. The accepted level of significance was p < 0.05. The pelvic obliquity was lower in older children (beta = −0.15). We also see that age played a significant role in the difference in the height of the right pelvis (beta = −0.28), and the difference in the height of the right shoulder (beta = 0.23). Regression analysis showed that the content of adipose tissue (FAT%) increased with body mass index (BMI) and decreased with increasing weight, age, and height. Moreover, the FAT% was lower in boys than in girls (beta negative equal to −0.39). It turned out that older children (puberty), had greater asymmetry in the right shoulder blade (p < 0.001) and right shoulder (p = 0.003). On the other hand, younger children (who were still before puberty) had greater anomalies in the left trunk inclination (p = 0.048) as well as in the pelvic obliquity (p = 0.008). Girls in puberty were characterized by greater asymmetry on the right side, including the shoulders (p = 0.001), the scapula (p = 0.001) and the pelvis (p < 0.001). In boys, the problem related only to the asymmetry of the shoulder blades (p < 0.001). Girls were characterized by a greater increase in adipose tissue and boys by muscle tissue. Significant differences also appeared in the body posture of the examined children. Greater asymmetry within scapulas and shoulders were seen in children during puberty. Therefore, a growing child should be closely monitored to protect them from the adverse consequences of poor posture or excessive accumulation of adipose tissue in the body.

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