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This paper is related to the anthropology of food and nutrition. The main idea is that the acts of eating or not eating express several meanings whose complexity demands a biomedical and cultural perspective. Overweight and obesity have become serious public health issues in Mexico, not only in urban areas, but in rural areas as well, where a concern with physical appearance is being detected among women. The present paper is a first approach to the subject of body perception in two different groups of women from Oaxaca: a mestizo group from the southern coastal area and an indigenous group from the "Sierra de Juárez". Their ages vary between fifteen and fifty years. It has been observed that women from the coast are more prone to overweight and obesity, hence, there is a greater concern with looking fat and they wish to be slim. There have been some cases of anorexia and bulimia detected. This is not the case with indigenous women from the Sierra. Based on the results of this study, the possibility of doing further research in this topic is discussed in order to include aspects related with body perception in future educational nutritional programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]