Neoliberal science, Chinese style: Making and managing the ‘obesity epidemic’

Abstract

Science and Technology Studies has seen a growing interest in the commercialization of science. In this article, I track the role of corporations in the construction of the obesity epidemic, deemed one of the major public health threats of the century. Focusing on China, a rising superpower in the midst of rampant, state-directed neoliberalization, I unravel the process, mechanisms, and broad effects of the corporate invention of an obesity epidemic. Largely hidden from view, Western firms were central actors at every stage in the creation, definition, and governmental management of obesity as a Chinese disease. Two industry-funded global health entities and the exploitation of personal ties enabled actors to nudge the development of obesity science and policy along lines beneficial to large firms, while obscuring the nudging. From Big Pharma to Big Food and Big Soda, transnational companies have been profiting from the 'epidemic of Chinese obesity', while doing little to effectively treat or prevent it. The China case suggests how obesity might have been constituted an 'epidemic threat' in other parts of the world and underscores the need for global frameworks to guide the study of neoliberal science and policymaking.

Obesity, Biopower, and Embodiment of Caring: Foodwork and Maternal Ambivalences in Ho Chi Minh City

“…This critical scholarship argues that the dominant discourse constructs obesity as one of the major food anxieties of our time that supposedly puts public health systems as well as the productive labour force of whole economies under pressure (WHO 2000;Guthmann 2009;Metzl and Kirkland 2010;LeBesco 2011;Lupton 2013). For the context of China, critical voices on obesity argue that the 'obesity epidemic' deemed culturally favoured body fatness in children pathological (Greenhalgh 2016). 2 Similarly in Vietnam, the chubby shape of a child's body becomes vested with conflicting meanings, ranging from the beauty of chubby children to "children with fat bellies" perceived as "alarming", as exemplified in the headline of the local newspaper above.…”

Boundary repair: Science and enterprise at the Chinese Academy of Sciences

“…As the state centralizes its control over society, will it adjust its role to being both ‘authorizer’ and ‘dictator’? As Western firms engage simultaneously with commerce and science in China (Greenhalgh, 2016), how do they influence the Chinese scientific community’s boundary work? These are important questions for future inquiries.…”

The key roles of economic and social organization and producer and consumer behaviour towards a health-agriculture-food-environment nexus: recent advances and future prospects

“…but also participatory sciences), on both the (re)qualification of food products (Den Hartog 2012) and consumption practices (Mol 2013). More generally, one must understand the way agricultural and agrofood markets recompose themselves (or fail to) in relation with the rise of diverse ways of making eating conducts governable (Bergeron et al 2016;Greenhalgh 2016). This includes further analysis of agrofood firms' strategies in terms of product labelling and marketing, accounting for firms' response to changes in consumer WTP, as discussed above.…”