1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910781753603321

Autore

Guthman Julie

Titolo

Weighing in [[electronic resource] ] : obesity, food justice, and the limits of capitalism / / Julie Guthman

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2011

ISBN

1-283-29182-7

9786613291820

0-520-94975-7

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (242 p.)

Collana

California studies in food and culture

Disciplina

362.196/398

Soggetti

Obesity - Social aspects

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Chapter 1. Introduction: What's the Problem? -- Chapter 2. How Do We Know Obesity Is a Problem? -- Chapter 3. Whose Problem Is Obesity? -- Chapter 4. Does Your Neighborhood Make You Fat? -- Chapter 5. Does Eating (Too Much) Make You Fat? -- Chapter 6. Does Farm Policy Make You Fat? -- Chapter 7. Will Fresh, Local, Organic Food Make You Thin? -- Chapter 8. What's Capitalism Got to Do with It? -- Chapter 9. Conclusion: What's on the Menu? -- Notes -- References -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Weighing In takes on the "obesity epidemic," challenging many widely held assumptions about its causes and consequences. Julie Guthman examines fatness and its relationship to health outcomes to ask if our efforts to prevent "obesity" are sensible, efficacious, or ethical. She also focuses the lens of obesity on the broader food system to understand why we produce cheap, over-processed food, as well as why we eat it. Guthman takes issue with the currently touted remedy to obesity-promoting food that is local, organic, and farm fresh. While such fare may be tastier and grown in more ecologically sustainable ways, this approach can also reinforce class and race inequalities and neglect other possible explanations for the rise in obesity, including environmental toxins. Arguing that ours is a political economy of bulimia-one that promotes consumption while also insisting upon



thinness-Guthman offers a complex analysis of our entire economic system.