Sweets are ‘my best friend’: belonging, bargains and body-shaming in working class girls’ food and health relationships

Abstract

Research and policy on children's food consumption commonly highlights the unequal impact of obesogenic environments on their health. Yet obesogenic theories risk pathologising certain communities, when assuming fixed relationships between 'unhealthy' environments and 'obese' bodies, and neglecting children's multi-layered relationships to food and health. Drawing on participatory photomapping with 11-12year-old girls in an urban Irish working-class neighbourhood, this study conceptualises children's food environments as dynamic, regulatory assemblages which involve multi-layered 'pushes and pulls' of 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' foods, experiences and norms. Such foods, experiences and norms are related to in a variety of ways in the girls' negotiation of belonging, bargain-hunting and body-shaming. The analysis challenges fixed, binary, adult-centred, classed and gendered ideas about healthy/ unhealthy child bodies, foods and environments. We argue that viewing food environments as assemblages invites 'obesogenic' policy and research to inclusively engage children's dynamic and multi-layered capacities to act, feel and desire around food.

Risk Factors of Overweight and Obesity Among School Children Aged 6 to 18 Years: A Scoping Review

“…This setting promotes overconsumption of energy-dense foods while discouraging regular physical activity. 169 A sedentary lifestyle, coupled with larger food portions and high-fat, sugar-rich diets, poses a significant risk. 170 Evidence from cross-sectional studies highlight how decreased energy expenditure and insufficient physical activity among children are linked to a higher risk of obesity.…”