The Unit for Biocultural Variation and Obesity (UBVO) at the University of Oxford addresses obesity by bringing together scholars of different disciplines to identify and carry out multidisciplinary studies on obesity, its socio-cultural correlates, and particular drivers. Discipline areas involved in collaboration at Oxford include anthropology, public health, cancer epidemiology, politics and international relations, business studies, economic history, and sociology.
Research issues include examination of constructs of body size and embodiment, biological and social life histories, consumption and affluence, corporate and social marketing, evolutionary adaptedness of psychological ambivalence, and corporate culture and social responsibility. Instruments for collaborative research under examination include ethnographies and narrative analysis, cultural consensus modelling, evolutionary life history theory, political economics, history and human biology, and epidemiology of diet and lifestyle.
