Tag Archives: childhood obesity

Childhood obesity came up in our class discussions many times. This is probably because it is good example for many discourses we have studied. It is popular topic in media; the growing wave of obesity awareness creates social panic. That is the same concept of over-stressing, exhagerating and presenting old issue as new danger, that we touched upon in Marry Beth Whitehead case and panic around surrogacy.  Educating parents about healthy food choices and demanding from them to feed their children expensive healthy meals perfectly fits into concept of fit/unfit parents. Who gets to decide which family is fit and what BMI index is gradient of healthy child is illustration of Foucault’s concept of power, that is hidden and operates through information and creation of discourses in society. Choice of the standard family, that others should measure up to,  that eat organic, exercise and encourage “healthy” habits in children, is a recreation of middle and upper class ideology.

The 4029tv video about Arkansas school’s fight against childhood obesity is a perfect illustration of Carolyn Vander Schee article and good showcase of discourses listed above.

I especially enjoyed how they through statistics and celebrity name (Michele Obama) in the beginning to  show the importance of the issue. And loved how statistics showed that although obesity rate in that particular school has fallen, it remained the same throughout the state, which was right away used to shift the blame from schools on parents. Only in the very end of the video school nurse acknowledge that many parents can’t afford to buy healthy food, but those are not featured in the video. Instead we get woman from majority group showing example of how she tries hard to get her kids active.