Week 5 Eating too much?

Guthman, Julie. 2011. Weighing in. Berkeley, University of California Press. Ch. 5 Does eating (too much) make you fat?


As I read this chapter, I thought of a novel I'd recommend called, My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki. In it the main character makes links between DES, a hormone the reading mentions, premature development and cancer.  Here's the blurb from Amazon: "When documentarian Jane Takagi-Little finally lands a job producing a Japanese television show that just happens to be sponsored by the American meat-exporting industry, she begins to uncover some unsavory truths about love, fertility, and a very dangerous hormone called DES." Also relatedly, I listened to a podcast from the Commonwealth Club by the director of the Environmental Working Group. They tested blood from 10 umbilical cords for 400 chemicals. Though neither of these sources makes reference to obesity, they do discuss the known unknowns about our chemical load. (Neither is required listening/reading).

Outline what you've learned from reading this chapter. What's the take home message? What makes sense? Pose questions from your disciplinary background. You'll see reference to Bourdieu (of Distinction fame). Show me you remember and understand.

Week 4 Nutrition apartheid and the geography of obesity

Apartheid is a practice and policy of separating people according to race most closely associated with South Africa prior to 1991. The Apple Dictionary writes, "Adopted by the successful Afrikaner National Party as a slogan in the 1948 election, apartheid extended and institutionalized existing racial segregation." Today social scientists and humanities scholars use the term to describe cases of segregation that occur because of social hierarchies.  In urban places with more nonwhite groups, stores are often more expensive, there tend to be fewer  grocery stores and there is more likely to be polluted land unfit for urban agriculture or zoning against it. ‘Nutritional apartheid’ (Garrett, 2008) is a term that speaks to the consequences of  racial hierarchy in US society whereas a term like 'food desert' does not. But the term, and geography more generally, is about a relationship between spaces and social relationships. Nutritional apartheid points to not just a lack of grocery stores but the way  life is made more difficult in many ways for nonwhite groups, which has an impact on how people are able to nourish their bodies and whether they become targets for intervention.

Guthman, Julie. 2011. Weighing in: obesity, food justice and the limits of capitalism. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ch. 2 How do we know obesity is a problem?  

Herrick C (2008) To the west and east of Interstate-35: obesity, philanthropic entrepreneurialism, and the delineation of risk in Austin, Texas. Environment and Planning A 40: 2715-2733.


The Blaisdell YMCA in Minneapolis featured a box for discarding our 'fat pants' and showcased this congealed hunk of fat (really?) at the entrance. Julie Guthman's new book, Weighing In, "calls into question the ubiquitous claim that 'good food' will solve the social and health dilemmas of today..." according to Ohio State geographer Becky Mansfield. The chapter you'll read explores how, through some statistical leaps of faith, a fascinated revulsion for the socially created 'abnormal' body and some circular reasoning, this society has come up with what many call the 'obesity epidemic'. Claire Herrick's paper explores a case in which Latinos in Austin TX were assumed to be at risk for obesity as a consequence of presumed 'bad habits' making their neighborhoods spaces of intervention for fitness and 'better' eating. Discuss what surprised you in these papers. Try to make connections between these readings and previous ones.

Listen/read this Minnesota Public Radio story on Latino children and obesity.  What are the ways this society usually chooses to address obesity? Listening to Samantha's story, why do those standard approaches stop short of addressing fundamental issues? Relate the story to Herrick's paper.

Week 3: Race and class in the imaginaries and practices of alternative food

Food Revolution?

Week 3 February 14-16

Race and class in the imaginaries and practices of alternative food

Slocum, Rachel, Jerry Shannon, Valentine Cadieux, and Matthew Beckman. 2011. ‘Properly, with love, from scratch’: Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. Radical History Review. 110: 178-191.

Guthman J (2008b) Bringing good food to others: investigating the subjects of alternative food practice. Cultural Geographies 15(4): 431-447. 

What are the methods that food change advocates use to bring about changes to the food system? According to these authors, what's wrong with these approaches and what do food change advocates need to think about? Julie Guthman is writing about her students' passions and research--how are your views similar or different from the ones her students voiced? Incorporate what you've seen on the list serv comfood-l into your discussion. Add points that relate from the earlier readings, especially Agrarian Dreams and Foodies. The paper on Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution proposes aspects that a food revolution would need to address while critiquing Oliver's emphases on Huntington West Virginia, obesity and school food. Discuss the relationship between the two papers and your reaction to the arguments.