The class and cultural functions of obesity discourse: our latter day child saving movement

Abstract

This paper examines the inexorable rise of ‘health’ as regulative discourse, highlighting its class and cultural dimensions. With reference to the policy content of recent obesity reports, analysis suggests that contemporary concerns around obesity are but a modern variant of earlier eighteenth and nineteenth century child saving crusades whose primary concerns were the regulation of deviant populations among women and the working classes rather than amelioration of the antecedents of social disorder and its attendant ill‐health. Unlike earlier crusades, however, in the ‘risk’ discourse of contemporary versions, class and gender are but a subtle presence, while other subjectivities of ethnicity, age and disability are barely to be seen. We suggest that in failing to address the complexity of people’s lives and the intersections of class and culture, such policies and their attendant pedagogies are likely to have very little impact on either individual or community health.

Keywords:

• class
• culture
• obesity discourse
• child saving

Notes

1. The young women in the study were aged between 11 and 20, were white, of UK origin, able‐bodied and all had been diagnosed as ‘having an eating disorder’ (Anorexia Nervosa or Bulimia Nervosa). Reflecting a wider demography of eating disorders (see, Doyle and Bryant‐Waugh 2000) the majority of those attending the Centre came from ‘middle class’ families and had attended what might be described as high status comprehensive, grammar or private schools, from across the UK. The Centre also accepted males but received very few. At the time of study none was available for inclusion in the research.

2. The Body Mass Index ranges: Underweight Under 18.5; Normal range between 18.5–24.9; Overweight between 25–29.9; Obese class 1 30–34.9; Obese class 2 35–39.9; Obese class 3 40 and over (Source: Adapted from WHO [1998]; note: Body Mass Index is calculated by dividing weight in kilograms by height in metres squared.

3. At about the same time, a Medibanks (2007) publication claiming that physically inactive Australian adults are costing the healthcare system an avoidable $1.5 billion a year.’

4. The young women in our study repeatedly allude to how the value system of individualisation rampant in obesity reports and refracted in school policy and pedagogy contain the elements of a ‘new ethics’, based essentially on the principle of ‘duty to oneself’ to eat properly, exercise more, lose weight and look after your own health. These tendencies were pedagogically embedded and embodied in their actions and attitudes.