Schaefer defines the sociological imagination as “an awareness of the relationship between an individual in the wider society, both today and in the past” (p. 5). Let’s begin our discussion this week by considering a particular scenario. You are walking down a street in your city or town and observe that more than half the people you see are overweight. Use the sociological imagination to explain your observation, noting how the sociological imagination helps us consider the causes and consequences of the things we observe in the world around us. What perspective do we gain by using the sociological imagination to explain social phenomena, like increasing obesity rates in American society?