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The essay briefly looks into the bioethical guide of extreme triage and resource allocation based on known co-morbidities (i e , obesity, hypertension, and diabetes) I invite to reflect upon how a focus on individual responsibility under COVID-19 occludes major structural problems while silencing the social factors behind the heath disaster that we are witnessing today The essay argues that chronic diseases are not merely the result of genetic makeup or individual choices but are instead profoundly linked to poverty, systemic racism, structural violence, and lack of care Debates on extreme triage guidelines and resource allocation illuminate a series of ethical shortcomings that preexisted COVID-19 Even if guidelines clearly state that criteria such as race, gender, or class will not be taken into account when deciding how to allocate limited medical resources, these categories are deeply linked to health disparities, and therefore, on people’s possibilities of surviving the pandemic © Centro de Biotecnologia y Biomedicina, Clinical Biotec Universidad CatA³lica del Oriente (UCO), Univesidad Yachay Tech

This paper explores mothers' experiences of masculinity in the context of child obesity in Mexico. The paper draws on face to face interviews with 10 medical staff working at the child obesity clinic at Federico Gomez Children's Hospital in Mexico City and on interviews with 16 mothers and 1 grandmother of children diagnosed with obesity and morbid obesity. Through an analysis of medical discourses and practices the paper identifies a tendency to underestimate the extent to which fathers are involved in shaping the family diet and other health related practices. The paper argues that mothers' experiences of masculinity reflect ways of resisting the increased blame placed on them. Through their voices, mothers expose silenced family dynamics of food and other health-related habits and patterns. The invisibility of fathers in medical and academic discourse works to feed mother blaming and misleads medical practices and policies designed to address child obesity in Mexico.

We compare the discourses on obesity found in early- and mid-twentieth century Mexican public discourse with those of Mexican geneticists and doctors today. We argue that postgenomic shifts towards non-determinism, apparently contained in current openness to epigenetics, need to be considered alongside the persistence of racialized genetic determinisms, and alongside the potential for epigenetic environmental determinisms. By exploring the environmentalist explanations of earlier eugenic thinking about obesity, we trace continuities in the gendered and racialized framings of obesity, which risk stigmatizing indigenous ancestry and attributing blame to individual mothers.

We explore the discourses of Mexican scientists and doctors on genetics and obesity and how these relate to ideas about race, class and national identity. Drawing on interviews with geneticists and doctors treating obese children , the paper makes two contributions to the literature on race and medical science. First, although our data reveal familiar racializing tendencies among geneticists, a more nuanced view is needed, as medical doctors who are sceptical about genetic explanations nevertheless tend to racialize, using more environmental and cultural explanations, which adduce epigenetic mechanisms. Second, rather than focusing on minority groups, as in much literature on racialization and genetics, in Mexico ideas about racialized genetic (and cultural) ancestry also impinge on the majority “mestizo” (mixed-race) population, opening broader panoramas of racialized pathologization. These two factors represent an overall strengthening of discourses of race in Mexico and probably in much of Latin America.