Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism

Maroney, Stephanie

doi:10.1525/gfc.2013.13.3.80

Cited by 16 publications

(19 citation statements)

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“…Second, our findings speak to the complexity of the neoliberal critique of consumer sovereignty, which is actually a pluralistic, multifaceted critique articulated by numerous scholars (e.g., Allen & Guthman, 2006; Guthman, 2009, 2011; Szasz, 2007). Generally, critics argue that it is ineffective to assign responsibility for solving collective problems to individual consumers and that this tendency perpetuates an economic ideology of neoliberalism that privileges free, unfettered markets as an optimal way to promote the ecological and social good.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 75%

How do producers imagine consumers? Connecting farm and fork through a cultural repertoire of consumer sovereignty

2022

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The phenomena of meat production and consumption are related but often studied separately, funnelled into silos of agro-food and consumer-focussed research. This article aims to reconnect these spheres by asking: How do meat producers understand the role of consumers in the ethical meatscape? We draw from interviews and site visits with 74 actors engaged with the ethical meat system in Canada. We find that consumers loom large in the cultural imaginary of meat producers and are often framed as key drivers of food system change. We make a two-pronged argument that explains the complex, embedded presence of consumers in meat producers' cultural imaginary. Conceptually, we argue that producers draw from a cultural repertoire of consumer sovereignty that frames consumer choice as a foundational element of capitalist societies. Empirically, we argue that ethical meat producers' direct relationships with consumers infuse producers' work with meaning and emotional significance, and this works to reinforce a normative valuation of consumer sovereignty. This All authors contributed equally to this article and are listed in alphabetical order.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 75%

How do producers imagine consumers? Connecting farm and fork through a cultural repertoire of consumer sovereignty

2022

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“…The observable phenotype of a body with a high proportion of fat is evaluated largely in cultural context, where it is seen as either positive or negative, depending on place, time, and localized histories (Bondeson, 2000;Brewis et al, 2011;Farrell, 2011;Sawbridge & Fitzgerald, 2009). In the US, bodies with high proportions of fat are judged through several mechanisms, including but not limited to: medicalization (Blackburn, 2011), cultural consonance around the idea of personal responsibility (Guthman, 2011;Pearl & Lebowitz, 2014;Tomiyama, 2014), as well as interpersonal, institutional, and structural responses to alarmist rhetoric about increasing obesity prevalence constituting an epidemic (Moffat, 2010).…”

Section: Statistical Norms and The Normativementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The prevalence of perceived fat stigma and discrimination has reportedly increased in the U.S. and across the globe in recent decades (Andreyeva et al, 2008;Brewis, 2014;Brewis et al, 2011). Much of this anti-fat bias stems from media and public health messages that weight is a matter of individual responsibility (Guthman, 2011) and stereotypes that high proportions of body fat represents character flaws, such as being sloppy, lazy, less competent, and lacking motivation and self-discipline (Puhl et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introduction 1| Fat Stigma and Health Consequencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biological normalcy and body fat: Obesity prevalence, fat stigma, and allostatic load among late adolescents and young adults

Cullin

2023

American Journal of Biological Anthropology

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Objectives: Biological normalcy provides a framework to assess tensions between clinical definitions of "normal," statistical norms, and normative beliefs. A prevailing cultural belief is obesity directly causes poor health, but research has demonstrated consequences of fat stigma. Previous research linked fat stigma and allostatic load (AL) in adults, but this has not been demonstrated in youth, and the role of obesity prevalence is unknown. This study assesses the relationship between fat stigma and AL among youth from counties varying by obesity prevalence.Materials and methods: Undergraduates from 38 counties across the US state of Indiana (n = 175) were recruited. Fat stigma was measured using the brief stigmatizing situations inventory (SSI). AL was calculated using eight biomarkers representing cardiovascular, metabolic, and immune function. Poisson regression assessed relationships of interest and adjusted for potential confounding. An interaction term and stratified analyses were used to assess moderation.Results: SSI was not statistically associated with obesity prevalence (RR = 0.96, p = 0.173) but did statistically significantly predict AL (RR = 1.019, p = 0.045) when adjusting for confounders. Obesity prevalence moderated the relationship between SSI and AL (RR = 0.993, p = 0.001).Discussion: Results suggest that fat stigma, regardless of body fat percentage, is associated with physiologic wear and tear on the late adolescent body, and that exposure to obesity during earlier adolescence moderates this relationship. Those most at risk for high AL reported high fat stigma and lived in counties with relatively low obesity prevalence during earlier adolescence, suggesting vulnerability to fat stigma may be heightened where obesity is less common.

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“…Toews notes that then-CEO of CentreVenture Ross McGowan commented in the media that if citizens were too poor to afford a beer at an expensive bar in the SHED district, then they were likely not "responsible enough" to buy alcohol downtown at all (2018,266). These logics of responsibility and citizenship are mirrored in healthism, and, for Indigenous consumers in Winnipeg's downtown, if they are not responsible enough to consume alcohol, or not be assumed to be shoplifting, such logics are used to exclude people from necessary resources and spaces (Amend 2018;Guthman 2011). The redrawing of what Toews dubs Winnipeg's "apartheid geography" led to the parallel process of vilifying existing residents and users of downtown space as non-responsible, while also seeking to remove "spaces of sustenance" for existing residents through the redevelopment of the city to remove unsavoury spaces such as dollar and bargain stores that were essential for sustenance (2018,272).…”

Section: Securitization Of Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

The Food Police: The White Possessive Securitization of Winnipeg Food Spaces

Daborn¹

2022

aps

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Grocery shopping is one of the most necessary everyday practices when it comes to being food secure. Food security is frequently spatially imagined along two axes – access and health. I highlight the specific conditions of existence for food insecure citizens in Winnipeg to demonstrate the incommensurability of how food insecurity is imagined and intervened upon, or not, through municipal policy. Drawing on Critical Indigenous Studies scholar Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s theorizations of white possession, I establish a framework of white possessive securitization to interrogate the dynamics between policy, policing, and securitization of space that results in Indigenous people being subjected to multiple modes of policing when grocery shopping. With white possessive securitization, I trace how individual settler citizens operate as self-governing subjects to police Indigenous people in the city while carrying out the aims of white patriarchal sovereignty – to secure private property. I provide three vignettes of the intersections of municipal policy and the policing of food by focussing on municipal budgets, securitization of public-private space, and grocery stores. These vignettes delineate how policing in grocery stores interfere with Indigenous food security and are inseparable from inflated municipal policing budgets, austerity measures that reduce community services, increased surveillance, threats of violence, and the undiscriminating implementation of the rule of law by individual settler citizens who through rationalities of governmentality are the police.

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Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism

Cited by 16 publications

References 0 publications

How do producers imagine consumers? Connecting farm and fork through a cultural repertoire of consumer sovereignty

How do producers imagine consumers? Connecting farm and fork through a cultural repertoire of consumer sovereignty

Biological normalcy and body fat: Obesity prevalence, fat stigma, and allostatic load among late adolescents and young adults

The Food Police: The White Possessive Securitization of Winnipeg Food Spaces

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