Household roles and obesity: Gender, culture and social class in Morocco

Often referred to as the developing world's new burden of disease, obesity constitutes a major and growing health epidemic in Morocco, in particular for women. In this dissertation, I focus on how gender operates to affect obesity risk in the Moroccan context. I suggest that we can explain the significant difference in male and female obesity rates (22% of women versus 8% of men) in Morocco through an examination of men's and women's household roles.; As Morocco progresses through both the demographic and epidemiological transitions, the population is also experiencing rapid changes in diet and lifestyle resulting from industrialization, urbanization, economic development, and market globalization. I find that current social and economic theories, including the nutrition transition theory (Popkin, 1993), are inadequate in explaining the persistent gender differentials in health status across time and place. In contrast, by utilizing a theoretical framework and an empirical context that combines findings from both quantitative and qualitative research, my work offers a new basis for understanding why women are far more likely than men to be obese in the Moroccan context.; The effect of gender on risk of obesity was found to operate through men's and women's household roles. These roles for women, in turn, are both derived from, and are dependent on, social, economic and cultural contexts, such as the statistically significant covariates of marital status, age, education, and particular aspects of material lifestyle (e.g., television ownership). The insight provided by the qualitative methods shows that factors related to women's obesity risk relate to their household roles and that factors related to men's obesity risk are more associated with their social and economic status. The particular contextual characteristics of Morocco, including specifically the lived religion of Islam, were observed to contribute and reinforce behaviors and attitudes associated with obesity risk.; The findings of this dissertation highlight the relationship between gender, social class, culture and health in Morocco. I call upon researchers to consider how household organization influences the health status of particular household members and, in particular, how non-egalitarian social roles may deleteriously affect women's health.