Love your Body: Examining Body Image Programs in the Context of the ‘Obesity Epidemic’

Author(s):

Jan Wright(presenting / submitting)Deana Leahy(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

08. Research on Health Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

08 SES 13 A, Policy Regimes and Windows of Possibilities

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-11

11:00-12:30

Room:

108.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Deana Leahy

Contribution

The term ‘body image’ has come to be used widely in the academic world, clinical practice, schools and popular culture to signify a cluster of meanings, but mostly these days meanings associated with body weight and shape. One of the enduring responses in schools (and on the internet) internationally to concerns about young people’s (read young women’s), ‘body dissatisfaction’ has been programs developed to promote positive ‘body image’ and to reduce eating disorders (Levine & Smolak 2002).

These programs take up what Gill and Elias (2014) describe as ‘love your body’ (LYB) discourses, discourses which have gained prominence in social and established media as an apparent counter to ‘normalized hostile judgement and surveillance of women’s bodies in contemporary media culture’ (p.180). In this presentation we use the notion of biopedagogies (Wright 2009), derived from Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, to examine the conditions of possibility for ‘positive body’ pedagogies in the context of widespread exhortations that schools address children’s and young peoples’ poor health habits and attitudes in relation to obesity.

Method

We use a Foucauldian discourse analysis of school body image materials and resources that target young people’s attitudes and behaviours in relation to body, fat and size. We examine i) the ‘truths’ they promote about bodies, weight and size; ii) the authority on which they draw to establish these ‘truths’; iii) how affect is harnessed to engage young people in particular ideas about bodies and selves; and iv) the effects of such biopedagogies for how young people might think about and act on, their own and others’ bodies.

Expected Outcomes

We will argue on the basis of our analysis that many of the materials and programs that are designed to address body dissatisfaction are informed by psychological discourses that focus on individual responsibility and change. They often assume a rational child or young person who can, through their own will, control they way they think and feel – that is ‘love their bodies’ - and in doing so discount ‘the culturally and historically specific discourses [and aesthetics] that … mobilise particular ways of seeing’ (Murray 2008: 170). We will also argue that the body image programs do not engage with the complexity of the discourses shaping body ideas, rather they skirt around the edges. The programs claim to be dealing with cultural stereotypes but in the name of challenging the thin ideal, they reproduce normative notions of the acceptable body. They rarely engage with stereotyping and stigmatisation of fat bodies, nor do they engage with the multiple and authoritative messages from governments and popular media that fat bodies are not acceptable, at times even reinforcing this idea. In the school context, body image programs are likely to run alongside health education/promotion programs that educate about preventing overweight and obesity through healthy eating and activity. How young people deal with the push and pull of such methods remains unexplored and points to the need for future projects.

References

Gill, R. and Elias, A. S. 2014. 'Awaken your incredible': Love your body discourses and postfeminist contradictions. International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, 10(2), 179-188. Levine, M. P., & Smolak, L. (2002). Ecological and activism approaches to the prevention and changing of body image problems. In T. F. Cash & T. Pruzinsky (Eds.), Body image: A handbook of theory, research and clinical practice. New York: The Guilford Press. Murray, S., 2008. The 'Fat' Female Body. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Wright, J. (2009) Biopedagogies and the obesity epidemic. In J. Wright & V. Harwood (Eds), The biopolitics of the obesity epidemic: Governing the body. New York and London: Routledge

Author Information

Jan Wright (presenting / submitting)

University of Wollongong

Faculty of Social Sciences

Wollongong

Deana Leahy (presenting)

Monash University

Faculty of Education

Berwick

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