Category Body Politics:

Lipo-Politics: The Body-Mass-Index (BMI) as an Instrument of Power

Posted on by Debora Frommeld

“I track myself, therefore I am” is perhaps the most fitting way to describe the basic idea behind the Quantified Self movement which has gained popularity all over the world in recent years. Increasingly, people have started to record and measure their own body-related data, tracking changes over time in metrics such as body weight, blood pressure, caloric expenditure, and the ever-present Body-Mass-Index (BMI). Simultaneously, the sale corresponding apps, sensors, smartwatches, and weighing scales that provide the technical means to collect this data has experienced a continuing surge. The sensors on Nike+ devices, for example, track movement, distance, and speed during physical activities such as running. Apparently, people love collecting these data, fueled by the promise of becoming slimmer and…

» Read More

Hanging on for the ride!

Posted on by Michael Gard

Food research is a kind of extreme sport. For one thing, it seems to have more than its share of converts whose enthusiasm for what they do borders on the evangelical. But most of all, food research is risky. Its intellectual terrain is seismically volatile and deep hidden chasms await the careless at every step. Peaks of euphoric discovery seem always to be followed by bottomless uncertainty and confusion. Perhaps I exaggerate, but I can think of no other area of enquiry that produces and destroys so many orthodoxies, or where common sense ideas turn to chimera with such regularity. George Johnson, the American science writer, recently recounted the curious example of food research and cancer. Johnson recalls that by…

» Read More