Routledge Handbook of Critical Obesity Studies

The Routledge Handbook of Critical Obesity Studies is an authoritative and challenging guide to the breadth and depth of critical thinking and theory on obesity. Rather than focusing on obesity as a public health crisis to be solved, this reference work offers divergent and radical strategies alongside biomedical and positivist discourses.

Comprised of thirty nine original chapters from internationally recognised academics, as well as emerging scholars, the Handbook engages students, academics, researchers and practitioners in contemporary critical scholarship on obesity; encourages engagement of social science and related disciplines in critical thinking and theorising on obesity; enhances critical theoretical and methodological work in the area, highlighting potential gaps as well as strengths; relates critical scholarship to new and evolving areas of obesity-related practices, policies and research.

This multidisciplinary and international collection is designed for a broad audience of academics, researchers, students and practitioners within the social and health sciences, including sociology, obesity science, public health, medicine, sports studies, fat studies, psychology, nutrition science, education and disability studies.

Part A: Introduction. 1.The Worlds of Critical Obesity Studies. Part B: History. 2.A Critical Obesidarium (in English). 3.How Body Size Became a Disease: A History of Body Mass Index and its Rise to Clinical Importance. 4.Obesity in Transition: A Challenge in Modern History. 5.Obesity in Brazil: Between Liberties and Pathologies. 6.Middle-Aged Businessman and Social Progress: The Links between Risk Factor Research and the Obesity Epidemic. 7.Crisis revisited: Historical Notes on Modern ‘Obesity Epidemic’. Part C: Theory. 8.Devil Pray: Fat Studies in an Obesity Research World. 9.Not the Medicine Needed? Governing Women’s Bodies via Exercise Prescription. 10.New Materialist Enactment. 11.Doing Fat with Post-Developmental Pedagogies. 12.A Personal Reflection on Editing: ‘Unmasking’ The Critical Obesity Researcher against Itself. Part D: Food. 13.Sweetening the ‘War on Obesity'. 14.Obesity and its Cures as Socio-Ecological Fixes for Agro-Food Capitalism. 15.Encountering ‘Healthy’ Food in Mexican Schools. 16.Navigating the ‘Norma’ In Food Experiences and Healthy Lifestyles of Chines International Students in Australia. 17.School Food in Australia- A Dog’s Breakfast? 18.Obesity and the Proper Meal at Workplace. French and English at the Table and (or Beyond) The Culturalist Explanation. 19.Junk Food Marketing, Childhood Obesity and the Production of (Un)certainty). Part E: Bodies. 20.(Re)defining Language: ‘Fat’, ‘Overweight’ , and ‘Obese’ Identities. 21.Skinny Selves in a Fat Obsessed World. 22.The Ubiquity of the Experience of Being ‘Too Fat’: Perspectives from Young People in Germany. 23.A Mother of a Problem: Addressing the Gendering of Obesity Panic. 24.Fighting Fat in Families. 25.Goldilocks Days: Optimal Activity Mixes in Australian Children. 26.Fat Activism and Physical Activity. 27.Wayfinding Obesity within the ‘VA’ of Critical Beauty. Part F: Media. 28.News Reporting on the ‘Obesity Epidemic’ and How it Worsens Weight-Based Stigma. 29.The Spectacle of Obesity in Reality Makeover Shows in Chile. 30.The Rise of the Carnivore Diet: And the Fetishizing of Ingidenous Foodways. 31.A Study of An Anti-Obesity, Anti-Obesity Campaign. Part G: Policies. 32.Evidence as a Fig Leaf: Obesity Policies and Institutional Filters in Denmark. 33.The Metabolic Rift Between Culture and Liberalism in Obesity Interventions and Policy. 34.A Matter of Weight? Anti-Obesity Strategies in Spain. 35.New Language, Old Assumptions: The Shape Shifting Language in British Columbia’s Physical and Health Education Curricula. 36.The Ethics of Obesity Policy. Part H: Future Directions. 37.Frameworks and Ideologies for Fat Non-Discrimination Rights. 38.Changing Attitudes: A Review and Critique of Weight Stigma Intervention Research. 39.A Critique of Obesity as a Category of Malnutrition in All its Forms

Michael Gard is Associate Professor of Sport, Health and Physical Education in the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences at the University of Queensland, Australia.

Darren Powell is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Auckland, New Zealand.

José Tenorio is an Associate Lecturer at the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences, University of Queensland, Australia.