Obesity has been at the forefront of the public health agenda in the United States since the late 1990s. Commonly considered a simple condition of excess for most of the 20th century, I argue that in order for scientific inquiry into obesity to be considered legitimate, an important transformation was required: obesity needed to be reconstructed as a complex condition, in need of multidisciplinary collaboration and significant, sustained research investment. Drawing on document analysis, in-depth interviews with obesity researchers, and ethnographic observation, in this article I show how the frame of complexity has been instrumental for obesity researchers carving out a legitimate area of scientific inquiry. I trace how complexity has been mobilized over the past 60 years, first during infrastructure building activities that occurred beginning in the early 1970s, as well as field expansion activities that institutionalized the frame during the 1990s and 2000s. While the complexity frame has largely been successful in attracting sustained investment in biomedical and public health research on obesity, it has differentially benefited researchers and those impacted by obesity.

中文翻译：

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构建复杂：集体行动框架与肥胖研究的兴起

肥胖一直是自1990年代后期在美国公共卫生议程的前列。通常被认为多余的大部分是20世纪的一个简单的条件，我认为，为了科学探究为肥胖被认为是合法的，需要一个重要的转变：需要重建是一个复杂的条件肥胖，需要多学科协作而显著，持续的科研投入。借鉴文件分析，深入访谈与肥胖的研究人员，和人种学观察，在这篇文章中我将展示复杂的框架，人们一直在器乐肥胖研究者雕刻出科学探究的合法区域。我跟踪的复杂性如何调动了过去60年来，第一期间发生在70年代初期开始，1990年代和2000年代期间，制度化框架的基础设施建设活动，以及野外拓展活动。虽然复杂性框架已经非常成功地吸引在生物医学和公共卫生研究的持续投资于肥胖，它的差异受益研究人员和那些肥胖的影响。