While the past 40 years have seen significant declines in adult smoking, this is not the case among young adults, who have the highest prevalence of smoking of all other age groups. At a time when just about everyone knows that smoking is bad for you, why do so many college students smoke? Is it a short lived phase or do they continue throughout the college years? And what happens after college, when they enter the "real world"? Drawing on interviews and focus groups with hundreds of young adults, Lighting Up takes the reader into their everyday lives to explore social smoking. Mimi Nichter argues that we must understand more about the meaning of social and low level smoking to youth, the social contexts that cause them to take up (or not take up) the habit, and the way that smoking plays a large role in students' social lives. Nichter examines how smoking facilitates social interaction, helps young people express and explore their identity, and serves as a means for communicating emotional states. Most college students who smoked socially were confident that "this was no big deal." After all, they were "not really smokers" and they would only be smoking for a short time. But, as graduation neared, they expressed ambivalence or reluctance to quit. As many grads today step into an uncertain future, where the prospect of finding a good job in a timely manner is unlikely, their 20s may be a time of great stress and instability. For those who have come to depend on the comfort of cigarettes during college, this array of life stressors may make cutting back or quitting more difficult, despite one's intentions and understandings of the harms of tobacco. And emerging products on the market, like e-cigarettes, offer an opportunity to move from smoking to vaping. Lighting Up considers how smoking fits into the lives of young adults and how uncertain times may lead to uncertain smoking trajectories that reach into adulthood.

- The book explores important relationships between social media and young people's cultural experiences and expressions and presents theoretical and conceptual grounding on a timely topic that maps directly to their everyday lives. - Eminently qualified and award-winning authors who are experienced in ethnographies (see author information) and documenting this age group. - The authors problematize pathologizing accounts that have been common in other studies into social media use (see, in particular, psychology) and instead focus on the social and emotional intersections and experiences of youth and young adults engaged with and through social media. - The theoretical and conceptual grounding applied enriches the book's malleability and extends its shelf life; that is, its methods and framework may be applied to newer and more emergent social media channels. - Adds socio-cultural dimensions to a topic that students, and the book's primary readers, will have immense familiarity with.

- The book explores important relationships between social media and young people's cultural experiences and expressions and presents theoretical and conceptual grounding on a timely topic that maps directly to their everyday lives. - Eminently qualified and award-winning authors who are experienced in ethnographies (see author information) and documenting this age group. - The authors problematize pathologizing accounts that have been common in other studies into social media use (see, in particular, psychology) and instead focus on the social and emotional intersections and experiences of youth and young adults engaged with and through social media. - The theoretical and conceptual grounding applied enriches the book's malleability and extends its shelf life; that is, its methods and framework may be applied to newer and more emergent social media channels. - Adds socio-cultural dimensions to a topic that students, and the book's primary readers, will have immense familiarity with.

This work examines some of the most significant health problems facing South Asia today and provides an assessment of the ways these problems are approached by those directly engaged in primary health care. This series of essays demonstrates the relevance of anthropological research to international health and the application of anthropological theory in medical anthropology. Recognizing the significance of cultural aspects in the practice of medicine, this book places a strong emphasis on the social structure, customs and history of the indigenous population and its ramifications on health care providers. The book also considers the econo-cultural influences on the way medicine is practiced. By including chapters that focus on health care's sudden advent as commodity and the microeconomic approach to public funding for health care facilities, the authors explore a world in which money and patients' expectations play an ever increasing role in the way health care is provided.

Recognizing the significance of cultural aspects in the practice of medicine, this book places a strong emphasis on the social structure, customs, and history of the indigenous population and its ramifications on health care providers. The book also considers the econo-cultural influences on the way medicine is practiced. By including chapters that focus on health care's sudden advent as commodity and the microeconomic approach to public funding for health care facilities, the Nichters explore a world in which money and patients' expectations play an ever increasing role in the way health care is provided.
In this recently revised and updated edition of "Anthropology and International Health," prominent anthropologists Mark and Mimi Nichter examine some of the most significant health problems facing Southern Asia today and provide a critical assessment of the ways these problems are approached by those directly engaged in primary health care. This series of informative essays demonstrates th

While the past 40 years have seen significant declines in adult smoking, this is not the case among young adults, who have the highest prevalence of smoking of all other age groups. At a time when just about everyone knows that smoking is bad for you, why do so many college students smoke? Is it a short lived phase or do they continue throughout the college years? And what happens after college, when they enter the "real world"? Drawing on interviews and focus groups with hundreds of young adults, Lighting Up takes the reader into their everyday lives to explore social smoking. Mimi Nichter argues that we must understand more about the meaning of social and low level smoking to youth, the social contexts that cause them to take up (or not take up) the habit, and the way that smoking plays a large role in students' social lives. Nichter examines how smoking facilitates social interaction, helps young people express and explore their identity, and serves as a means for communicating emotional states. Most college students who smoked socially were confident that "this was no big deal." After all, they were "not really smokers" and they would only be smoking for a short time. But, as graduation neared, they expressed ambivalence or reluctance to quit. As many grads today step into an uncertain future, where the prospect of finding a good job in a timely manner is unlikely, their 20s may be a time of great stress and instability. For those who have come to depend on the comfort of cigarettes during college, this array of life stressors may make cutting back or quitting more difficult, despite one's intentions and understandings of the harms of tobacco. And emerging products on the market, like e-cigarettes, offer an opportunity to move from smoking to vaping. Lighting Up considers how smoking fits into the lives of young adults and how uncertain times may lead to uncertain smoking trajectories that reach into adulthood.

TEEN-AGED GIRLS hate their bodies and diet obsessively, or so we hear. News stories and reports of survey research often claim that as many as three girls in five are on a diet at any given time, and they grimly suggest that many are "at risk" for eating disorders. But how much can we believe these frightening stories? What do teenagers mean when they say they are dieting?

Anthropologist Mimi Nichter spent three years interviewing middle school and high school girls -- lower-middle to middle class, white, black, and Latina -- about their feelings concerning appearance, their eating habits, and dieting. In Fat Talk, she tells us what the girls told her, and explores the influence of peers, family, and the media on girls' sense of self. Letting girls speak for themselves, she gives us the human side of survey statistics.

Most of the white girls in her study disliked something about their bodies and knew all too well that they did not look like the envied, hated "perfect girl". But they did not diet so much as talk about dieting. Nichter wryly argues -- in fact some of the girls as much as tell her -- that "fat talk" is a kind of social ritual among friends, a way of being, or creating solidarity. It allows the girls to show that they are concerned about their weight, but it lessens the urgency to do anything about it, other than diet from breakfast to lunch. Nichter concludes that if anything, girls are watching their weight and what they eat, as well as trying to get some exercise and eat "healthfully", in a way that sounds much less disturbing than stories about the epidemic of eating disorders among American girls.

Black girls, Nichter learned, escape the weight obsession and the"fat talk" that is so pervasive among white girls. The African-American girls she talked with were much more satisfied with their bodies than were the white girls. For them, beauty was a matter of projecting attitude ("'tude") and moving with confidence and style.

Fat Talk takes the reader into the lives of girls as daughters, providing insights into how parents talk to their teenagers about their changing bodies. The black girls admired their mothers' strength; the white girls described their mothers' own "fat talk", their fathers' uncomfortable teasing, and the way they and their mothers sometimes dieted together to escape the family "curse" -- flabby thighs, ample hips. Moving beyond negative stereotypes of mother-daughter relationships, Nichter sensitively examines the issues and struggles that mothers face in bringing up their daughters, particularly in relation to body image, and considers how they can help their daughters move beyond rigid and stereotyped images of ideal beauty.