neoliberalism Archives - Food, Fatness and Fitness

Within the sphere of television, especially weight-loss makeover shows portray the fat body as inappropriate, inacceptable, and in need of change. Makeover shows are popular all over the world; the arguably most well-known one regarding weight loss is The Biggest Loser, which has been airing in the US since 2004 and has been reproduced in close to 40 countries, highlighting its appeal to the general population. Makeover shows transmit the imperative of improvement: improving one’s body, in the logic of the makeover, directly translates to an improvement of one’s life; if one works hard enough, anything is possible. The makeover narrative thus reflects a neoliberal notion of personal responsibility, which used to be prominent especially in the US but has…

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Since the COVID-19 pandemic began in the United States in the early months of 2020, national media outlets have featured photos of lines of cars outside food banks in cities across the country. Such images serve as a shocking reminder that, yes, hunger exists in America. In this piece, I highlight how drastic changes in American food programs in the 1970s shaped contemporary food welfare policies. Enacting a politics of austerity, presidents and politicians began to place limits around food welfare spending within government, opening the door for a more far-reaching politics of disentitlement in the 1980s. These changes created lasting legacies that impact our relationship to hunger in America today, including normalizing the reliance of millions of Americans on…

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In recent years, body, health, morality and the neoliberal capitalist economy have become caught up with each other in a major way in both the public discourse and public policies concerning fatness. Against the backdrop of the dominant neoliberal rationale, the fat body has been ranked as an “expensive” body, but not just that; the fat body is constructed as a kind of “anti-neoliberal” body that is unproductive, ineffective, and unprofitable. Thus, fatness, health, and the economy are bound together materially, symbolically, and morally. This is particularly visible in the so called obesity epidemic discourse that has dominated public discussion of fatness over the past fifteen years. In the spring of 2010, an unusual weight loss campaign ran in…

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Vincent makes sure his voice carries far enough for me to understand that I need to push through thirty seconds longer, even with all the background noise. In fact, I am hardly aware of my environment. Or was, until I identified a moving object in the corner of my eye. When I strain my head to look left, I see a toddler watching me with a strange expression on his face. I am focused on the burning sensation in my abdominal area and my mind telling me that I should just give up. But Vincent’s reference to time gives me a new surge of willpower and I manage to uphold my body in plank position, supporting my rigid body on…

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On Sunday, April 30th 2017, Oprah Winfrey, probably America’s best known talk show host, sat down for that day’s episode of her weekly talk series SuperSoul Sunday. She met Geneen Roth, author of several self-help books on eating, dieting and women’s spiritual life. Geneen and Oprah talked about a topic seemingly accompanying both middle-aged women for almost their whole lifetime, their long lasting “struggles” with food, dieting and their body—leading to life-changing insights Roth digested in her best-selling book “Women, Food and God.” I will, first, explore that show as a gateway to think about how food and body are dealt with in popular media. The show stands as a powerful example for how food and eating have become an…

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Food, Fatness and Fitness

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Control through Compassion – Hidden Power Relations in Finnish Makeover Shows

From Austerity to Disentitlement: The Transformation of Food Welfare in the U.S.

Money for Your Fat! Health, Moral and Capitalism

Navigating Bootcamp and Beers — An Urban Wellness Economy

Choose Wisely! Food, Pleasure and the Responsible Self