In recent years, the “obesity epidemic” has emerged as a putative public health crisis. This article examines the interconnected role of medical science and news reporting in shaping the way obesity is framed as a social problem. Drawing on a sample of scientific publications on weight and health, and press releases and news reporting on these publications, we compare and contrast social problem frames in medical science and news reporting. We find substantial overlap in science and news reporting, but the news media do dramatize more than the studies on which they are reporting and are more likely than the original science to highlight individual blame for weight. This is partly due to the news media’s tendency to report more heavily on the most alarmist and individual‐blaming scientific studies. We find some evidence that press releases also shape which articles receive media coverage and how they are framed.

Eggs and sperm are parallel bodily goods in that each contributes half of the reproductive material needed to create life. Yet these cells are produced by differently sexed bodies, allowing for a comparative analysis of how the social process of bodily commodification varies based on sex and gender. Drawing on interview and observational data from two egg agencies and two sperm banks in the United States, this article compares how staff recruit, screen, market, and compensate women and men donors. Results show how gendered norms inspire more altruistic rhetoric in egg donation than in sperm donation, producing different regimes of bodily commodification for women and men. I conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for debates in sociology of gender about biological differences among women and men and the cultural norms attributed to these differences; debates in economic sociology about how social factors shape the expansion of the market; and debates in medical sociology about the intersection of the market and medical practice.

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Every human being in every society results from reproduction, and most American men and women will have a child at some point in their lives. Even those who do not want to have children must contend with strong cultural presumptions around parenthood and, if they are sexually active, take steps to ensure they do not reproduce. In this review I discuss recent research on pregnancy, birth, abortion, contraception, infertility, and assisted reproduction. I argue that social scientists have conceptualized reproduction as a series of events that occur primarily in women's bodies. To stimulate theoretical and empirical research in this area, I develop a new conceptualization of reproduction as a biological and social process. I conclude by pointing to areas in need of further research, including reproductive aging, men, and the integration of qualitative and quantitative research.

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