Diet Practices Archives - Page 2 of 10 - Food, Fatness and Fitness

Blitzing, blasting, shredding, and, of course, pumping. For bodybuilders of the 1980s, these verbs were not just descriptors, but a way of life. In 1977, Pumping Iron, a docudrama featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger, helped American men fall in love with bodybuilding. Where Jane Fonda encouraged a boom of aerobics exercises for women, Arnold and his rag-tag group of muscular merry-men became the face of a new public interest in musculature. Bodybuilding grew as a sport, but just as importantly, as a hobby. This was a time when fitness became ‘serious leisure’ and, as multiple historians have affirmed, a time when individual health and fitness became a priority and a means of claiming social status. Muscular and lean bodies came to become…

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Underutilized, neglected, orphan, emergency, miracle, or super crops – these are labels and terms one can find in academic debates and marketing campaigns of so-called superfoods. Superfoods are crops that are celebrated for their high nutritional value and “curative properties.” They are often linked to indigenous communities, traditional practices and a unique place-based history. In recent years, the interest and enthusiasm for superfoods increased: A variety of food products such as chia seeds, moringa and quinoa were marketed globally as superfoods, which fundamentally affected and destabilized the local food systems these foods had been embedded in. Superfoods are often imagined as problem solvers; specifically development experts and the tech sector see them as promising solutions in addressing various issues such…

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Darya, a 35-year-old PhD student in Florida who was born in Iran, shares a painful memory with me. At a New Year’s party, after she hadn’t seen her cousin in Tehran for three years and after an accident that had her gaining weight, “instead of saying hi and how are you doing,” Darya explains, “she tells me, ‘Darya you’re exploding!,’ or let me say it in Farsi, ‘Darya, Natereki!’” Darya responded by justifying her body: “I said, ‘yeah, I’m gaining weight but I will be okay soon.’” After the party, Darya was very upset that she didn’t defend herself; she didn’t want to upset her mother. As she told her mother, “I didn’t answer her [cousin] and next time, I’m…

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In 2020, a large group of international health experts published a joint international consensus statement for ending stigma of “obesity,” in which the authors state: “Research indicates that weight stigma can cause physical and psychological harm, and that affected individuals are less likely to receive adequate care. For these reasons, weight stigma damages health, undermines human and social rights, and is unacceptable in modern societies.” In January 2022, the Lancet, one of the oldest and most prestigious scientific journals, called for reframing “obesity health care,” studying “the impact of weight stigma and discrimination in health care,“ and exploring “the development (…] of weight inclusive environments“ and “non-weight focused policies and practices.” These statements mark a milestone in health science! Why?…

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“Big Momma Ya’ Arm!” is a 25-year running ‘joke’ within some Black American communities. The phrase comes from a film titled Soul Food which chronicles the trials of the Joseph family after the death of their matriarch, Mother (Big Mama) Joe. The film details the importance of foodways in Black communities throughout history and across time, and helped bring to mainstream the importance of Sunday Dinners in our cultural traditions. The name “Big Mama” was at one point common for matriarchs in Black American families, and while it might invoke a fat-bodied matriarch, that is not a prerequisite for use of the term. In the film, however, Big Mama is fat-bodied and diabetic. There is a moment in the film where…

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Food, Fatness and Fitness

Critical Perspectives

Category Diet Practices:

Eat More to Lift More? Purposeful Weight Gain and Weight Loss in 1980s American Bodybuilding

Rich People’s Food? Changing Food Landscapes and the Need for a Critical Discourse on Superfoods

“You’re exploding!”: Sizeism among Iranian Americans in the Diaspora

From Sin to Science? How a Brand-New Diabetes Guideline Reveals the Moral Influences of Moderation on Health Science