ORCID Profile
0000-0003-2362-6324
Current Organisations
Australian National University
,
University of Oxford
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 03-2009
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 05-2009
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 28-09-2009
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 2017
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 06-2013
DOI: 10.1111/MAQ.12043
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 23-08-2017
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2020
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-04-2016
DOI: 10.1111/OBR.12386
Abstract: Since 1997, and despite several political changes, obesity policy in the UK has overwhelmingly framed obesity as a problem of in idual responsibility. Reports, policies and interventions have emphasized that it is the responsibility of in idual consumers to make personal changes to reduce obesity. The Foresight Report 'Tackling Obesities: Future Choices' (2007) attempted to reframe obesity as a complex problem that required multiple sites of intervention well beyond the range of personal responsibility. This framing formed the basis for policy and coincided with increasing acknowledgement of the complex nature of obesity in obesity research. Yet policy and interventions developed following Foresight, such as the Change4Life social marketing c aign, targeted in idual consumer behaviour. With the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government of 2011, intervention shifted to corporate and in idual responsibility, making corporations voluntarily responsible for motivating in idual consumers to change. This article examines shifts in the framing of obesity from a problem of in idual responsibility, towards collective responsibility, and back to the in idual in UK government reports, policies and interventions between 1997 and 2015. We show that UK obesity policies reflect the landscape of policymakers, advisors, political pressures and values, as much as, if not more than, the landscape of evidence. The view that the in idual should be the central site for obesity prevention and intervention has remained central to the political framing of population-level obesity, despite strong evidence contrary to this. Power dynamics in obesity governance processes have remained unchallenged by the UK government, and in idualistic framing of obesity policy continues to offer the path of least resistance.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 29-08-2014
DOI: 10.1017/S136898001400175X
Abstract: Between 1980 and 2008, two Pacific island nations – Nauru and the Cook Islands – experienced the fastest rates of increasing BMI in the world. Rates were over four times higher than the mean global BMI increase. The aim of the present paper is to examine why these populations have been so prone to obesity increases in recent times. Three explanatory frames that apply to both countries are presented: (i) geographic isolation and genetic predisposition (ii) small population and low food production capacity and (iii) social change under colonial influence. These are compared with social changes documented by anthropologists during the colonial and post-colonial periods. Nauru and the Cook Islands. While islands are isolated, islanders are interconnected. Similarly, islands are small, but land use is socially determined. While obesity affects in iduals, islanders are interdependent. New social values, which were rapidly propagated through institutions such as the colonial system of education and the cash economy, are today reflected in all aspects of islander life, including diet. Such historical social changes may predispose societies to obesity. Colonial processes may have put in place the conditions for subsequent rapidly escalating obesity. Of the three frameworks discussed, social change under colonial influence is not immutable to further change in the future and could take place rapidly. In theorising obesity emergence in the Pacific islands, there is a need to incorporate the idea of obesity being a product of interdependence and interconnectedness, rather than independence and in idual choice.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 30-03-2010
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 31-05-2021
DOI: 10.1002/AJS4.168
Abstract: In Australia, as in other places in the world, we accumulate and curate Big Data – in the public and private spheres as consumers and citizens for profit, for proof and for the promises it holds. Yet, data are only ever a partial snapshot of the lives of humans, communities, environments and places. Data has its place, but in order to use data to effect change, we need to understand which questions to ask, which assumptions to suspend, which data to collect and how to interpret them, we need knowledge of the broader context. Taking a systems‐level view of data allows us to ask questions about it as a technical and sense making apparatus, as well as about the consequences of data collection, storage and use. This article advocates for a cybernetic approach to thinking about and using data. Cybernetics can be broadly understood as the study of feedback, communication and control in a system. A cybernetic approach to Big Data means de‐centring data to focus on a broader system of cultural, technological and environmental dimensions. In this approach, the system itself is the core unit of analysis, and also a vantage point or an approach through which to encounter and re/structure such systems. Employing a cybernetic approach allows us to move beyond attempts to order and reorder information, and instead see it as making implicit knowledge explicit, and then knowing that the hard work is what to do with that knowledge. Through this we are able to conceptualise more complex inputs, outputs and interactions, than simply those captured in a dataset. The insights drawn from a particular dataset or datasets, or from a particular model or algorithm (however well parameterised) never represent the whole truth, and a cybernetics framing enables practitioners to say, if that is the case, what now? A cybernetic approach suggests we should preference deeper understanding, not simply more truth.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 03-04-2018
DOI: 10.1080/03014460.2018.1459838
Abstract: Pacific Islanders have experienced over 50 years of obesity interventions-the longest of any region in the world. Yet, obesity-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) continue to rise. 'Traditional' body norms have been cited as barriers to these interventions. In this study, we ask: 'What is the relationship between health interventions, body norms and people's experience of "fatness"? How - and why - have these changed over time?' We study two nations with high rates of obesity: Nauru and Samoa. Ethnographic fieldwork with people in everyday and clinical settings in Samoa (2011-2012 2017) and Nauru (2010-2011). Body norms are not a single or universal set of values. Instead, multiple cultural influences-including global health, local community members and global media-interact to create a complex landscape of contradictory body norms. Body norms and body size interventions exist in an iterative relationship. Our findings suggest that Pacific island obesity interventions do not fail because they conflict with local body norms rather, they fail because they powerfully re-shape body norms in ways that confuse and counteract their intended purpose. Left unacknowledged, this appears to have (unintended) consequences for the success of anti-obesity interventions.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 14-04-2016
DOI: 10.1002/AR.23325
Abstract: Anatomical dissection has begun to reveal striking similarities between gross anatomical structures and the system of nomenclature used in traditional Chinese acupuncture. This paper argues that acupuncture point nomenclature is rooted in systematic anatomical investigation of cadaveric specimens, and that acupuncture points and meridians are purposefully named to reflect observable physical form. Two types of evidence are compared: observations of physical structures based on anatomical dissection, and translation and analysis of original Chinese texts. Evidence is contextualized through in-depth practical understanding of acupuncture. Points designated as [Chinese character] tian (heavenly/superior), [Chinese character] xia (below/inferior), [Chinese character] liao (bone-hole), [Chinese character] fei (flying), [Chinese character] wei (bend), and [Chinese character] xi (mountain stream/ravine) are investigated. These acupuncture point names: (a) specify position (b) reflect function and/or form (c) indicate homologous structures (d) mark unusual structures and/or (e) describe the physical appearance of a deep (dissected) structure by likening it to a homologous everyday object. Results raise intriguing possibilities for developing an understanding of acupuncture points and meridians firmly based in the material and functional anatomy of the human body. Such an understanding has the potential to open new fields of thought about functional anatomy. It also has implications for future investigations into the mechanisms of acupuncture, and gives some insights into the possible origins of this iconic area of Chinese medicine.
Publisher: Unpublished
Date: 2015
Publisher: OMICS Publishing Group
Date: 05-2015
DOI: 10.2217/DMT.15.4
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2018
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 10-02-2020
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 03-04-2018
DOI: 10.1080/03014460.2018.1469668
Abstract: Dietary surveys are frequently used as the basis for theorising nutritional change and diet-related non-communicable disease emergence (DR-NCD) in the Pacific islands. However, findings from historical survey data do not always align with ethnographic evidence. This paper aims to examine the extent to which the two types of evidence can lead to similar conclusions, and draw out the implications for current theories of, and interventions addressing, nutritional change. Dietary surveys carried out on Nauru between 1927 and 1979 are reviewed and compared with ethnographic evidence documented by social researchers across the colonial and post-colonial periods. This comparison reveals several shortcomings of survey data. Nutritional issues considered to be relatively recent-such as high-fat, low-fibre diets and transition to imported foods-occurred a century ago in our analysis and point to a long history of nutrition policy and intervention failure. Further, there is limited evidence that caloric intake overall increased significantly over this period of time in Nauru. Theories of dietary change and DR-NCD emergence and resulting interventions could be improved through a more holistic approach to nutrition that integrates sociocultural and historical evidence about both the target population and the scientists doing the research.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 03-2012
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
No related grants have been discovered for Amy McLennan.