Abstract
In the OPAL program sugar was an item that had to be reduced in everyday consumption, as it damaged bodies and was “empty calories.” For many participants, however, sugar was a small pleasure, a “pick-me-up” and a way of demonstrating care for oneself and for others. Families reclaimed the meanings of sugar beyond a nutritionist discourse of dietary sugar, using sweetness and sugar as a practice of care. When food is one of the few pleasures that people have, being told not to eat it resulted in forms of resistance and resentment. Sugar, Warin and Zivkovic argue, may be empty calories, but it is not an empty category.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Maccas is Australian slang for McDonalds®.
- 2.
- 3.
In her research on cancer survivorship, Kinshella (2017) notes how sugar is described by her participants as “a fuel” that “feeds” cancer:
Sugar is not just bad, it is evil. It is malevolent and subverts the body’s defense systems. It is devious and hides in other types of foods. It is sinfully sweet and seductive but once allowed into the body, it can feed destructive, uncontrollable growth. Participants talked about sugar as something cancer survivors have to be especially vigilant against.
- 4.
A 2011 research paper, “The Australian paradox,” written by dietitian Alan Barclay and nutritionist Jennie Brand-Miller, found a negative relationship between Australian obesity and sugar consumption (Barclay and Brand-Miller 2011). In their paper they claimed that sugar intake had actually declined in Australia and that sugar was not to blame for the rise in obesity and diabetes. Following media scrutiny (including claims of conflict of interest), the paper was discredited and shown to rely on incomplete data (Rikkers et al. 2013), as it excluded sugar contained in imported processed foods. An independent inquiry and a more recent paper by the authors in question refute these detractions and support their original argument (Brand-Miller and Barclay 2017).
- 5.
Lollies is the name that Australians give to sugary confectionary (candy in the USA and sweets in the UK).
- 6.
“Smoko” is an Australian slang term used to describe a short cigarette break.
- 7.
Minties are a soft, chewable mint-flavored sweet.
References
Albon, D. (2005). Approaches to the study of children and sweet eating: A review of the literature. Early Child Development and Care, 175(5), 407–417.
Atwell, B. L. (2013). Is sugar the new tobacco: How to regulate toxic foods. Annals Health L, 22, 138.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2016). Australian Health Survey: Consumption of added sugars, 2011–2012. Retrieved from http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4364.0.55.011~2011-12~Main%20Features~Added%20Sugars%20and%20Free%20Sugars~7
Barclay, A. W., & Brand-Miller, J. (2011). The Australian paradox: A substantial decline in sugars intake over the same timeframe that overweight and obesity have increased. Nutrients, 3(4), 491–504.
Barnes, M. (2012). Care in everyday life: An ethic of care in practice. Bristol: Policy Press.
Berlant, L. (2011). Cruel optimism. London: Duke University Press.
Bissell, P., Peacock, M., Blackburn, J., & Smith, C. (2016). The discordant pleasures of everyday eating: Reflections on the social gradient in obesity under neo-liberalism. Social Science & Medicine, 159, 14–21.
Borland, R., & Balmford, J. (2003). Understanding how mass media campaigns impact on smokers. Tobacco Control, 12(2), 45–52.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste (trans: Nice, R.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Brand-Miller, J. C., & Barclay, A. W. (2017). Declining consumption of added sugars and sugar-sweetened beverages in Australia: A challenge for obesity prevention, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 105(4), 854–863.
Brookes, G., & Harvey, K. (2015). Peddling a semiotics of fear: A critical examination of scare tactics and commercial strategies in public health promotion. Social Semiotics, 25(1), 57–80.
Brooks, S. D., Burges Watson, A., Draper, M., Goodman, H., Kvalvaag, H., & Wills, W. (2013). Chewing on choice. In E. J. Abbots & A. Lavis (Eds.), Why we eat, how we eat: Contemporary encounters between foods and bodies (pp. 149–169). Farnham: Ashgate.
Colchero, M. A., Rivera-Dommarco, J., Popkin, B. M., & Ng, S. W. (2017). In Mexico, evidence of sustained consumer response two years after implementing a sugar-sweetened beverage tax. Health Affairs, 36(3), 564–571.
Coveney, J. (2006). Food, morals and meaning: The pleasure and anxiety of eating (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Coveney, J. (2014). The government of girth. Health Sociology Review, 17(2), 199–213.
Cowan, J. K. (1991). Going out for coffee?: Contesting the grounds of gendered pleasures in everyday sociability. In P. Loizos & E. Papataxiarchēs (Eds.), Contested identities: gender and kinship in modern Greece (pp. 180–202). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
de Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Dufty, W. (1975). Sugar blues. New York: Warner Books.
Fischler, C. (1987). Attitudes towards sugar and sweetness in historical and social perspective. In J. Dobbing (Ed.), Sweetness (pp. 83–98). Berlin: Springer.
Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New York: Vintage Books.
Fox, R., & Smith, G. (2011). Sinner ladies and the gospel of good taste: Geographies of food, class and care. Health & Place, 17(2), 403–412.
Gillespie, D. (2008). Sweet poison: Why sugar is making us fat. Surry Hills: Penguin Group Australia.
Graham, H. (1994). Gender and class as dimensions of smoking behavior in Britain: Insights from a survey of mothers. Social Science and Medicine, 38(5), 691–698.
Harris, J. L., Pomeranz, J. L., Lobstein, T., & Brownell, K. D. (2009). A crisis in the marketplace: How food marketing contributes to childhood obesity and what can be done. Annual Review of Public Health, 30, 211–225.
Hastings, G., Stead, M., & Webb, J. (2004). Fear appeals in social marketing: Strategic and ethical reasons for concern. Psychology & Marketing, 21(11), 961–986.
Held, V. (2006). The ethics of care: Personal, political, and global. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hill, D. S., Chapman, B., & Donovanc, R. (1998). The return of scare tactics. Tobacco Control, 7(1), 5–8.
Holtzman, J. (2016). To love sugar one does not have to eat it. Gastronomica: The Journal of Critical Food Studies, 16(3), 44–55.
Joyce, B. (2017, February 17). Federal sugar tax proposals divide experts and federal government. Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/sugar-tax-proposals-divide-experts-and-federal-government-20170217-guf0sd.html0
Kinshella, M. L. W. (2017). Quinoa buffets and sugar devils: Experiences of cancer survivorship through food. Anthropology of Food (12). Retrieved from https://journals.openedition.org/aof/8247
Lei, L., Rangan, A., Flood, V. M., & Louie, J. C. Y. (2016). Dietary intake and food sources of added sugar in the Australian population. British Journal of Nutrition, 115(5), 868–877.
Lim, D. C. (2013). Sugar, not fat, is the culprit. British Medical Journal, 347(2013). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.f6846.
Lupton, D. (2013). Moral threats and dangerous desires: AIDS in the news media. London: Routledge.
Lustig, R. (2013a, August 8). Toxic sugar. [ABC television series: Catalyst]. http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3821440.htm
Lustig, R. (2013b). Fat chance: The hidden truth about sugar, obesity and disease. New York: Penguin.
McLennan, A. K., Ulijaszek, S. J., & Eli, K. (2014). Social aspects of dietary sugars. In L. Tappy, K. A. Lê, & M. I. Goran (Eds.), Dietary sugars and health (pp. 1–10). London: CRC Press.
Mintz, S. (1986). Sweetness and power. New York: Penguin.
Mol, A. (2008). The logic of care: Health and the problem of patient choice. London: Routledge.
Mol, A. (2010). Care and its values: Good food in the nursing home. In A. Mol et al. (Eds.), Care in practice: On tinkering in clinics, homes and farms (pp. 215–234). New London: Transaction Publishers.
Mol, A., Moser, I., & Pols, J. (2010a). Care in practice: On tinkering in clinics, homes and farms. New London: Transaction Publishers.
Mol, A., Moser, I., & Pols, J. (2010b). Care: Putting practice into theory. In A. Mol et al. (Eds.), Care in practice: On tinkering in clinics, homes and farms (pp. 7–26). New London: Transaction Publishers.
Nestle, M. (2016). Food industry funding of nutrition research: The relevance of history for current debates. JAMA Internal Medicine, 176(11), 1685–1686.
Pampel, F. C. (2012). Does reading keep you thin? Leisure activities, cultural tastes and body weight in comparative perspective. Sociology of Health & Illness, 34(3), 396–411.
Popkin, B. M. (2001). The nutrition transition and obesity in the developing world. The Journal of Nutrition, 131(3), 871S–873S.
Rikkers, W., Lawrence, D., Hafekost, K., Mitrou, F., & Zubrick, S. R. (2013). Trends in sugar supply and consumption in Australia: Is there an Australian paradox. BMC Public Health, 13(1), 668.
Rothman, A. J., Bartels, R. D., Wlaschin, J., & Salovey, P. (2006). The strategic use of gain- and loss-framed messages to promote healthy behavior: How theory can inform practice. Journal of Communication, 56(S1), S202–S220.
Scott, J. C. (1985/2008). Weapons of the weak: Everyday forms of peasant resistance. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.
Serematakis, C. (1994). The senses still: Perception and memory as material culture in modernity. Boulder: Westview Press.
Stoller, P. (1989). The taste of ethnographic things. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Tronto, J. (1993). Moral boundaries: A political argument for an ethic of care. London: Routledge.
Warin, M. (2011). Foucault’s progeny: Jamie Oliver and the art of governing obesity. Social Theory & Health, 9(1), 24–40.
Warin, M., & Dennis, S. (2005). Threads of memory: Reproducing the cypress tree through sensual consumption. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 26(1–2), 159–170.
Warin, M., Zivkovic, T., Moore, V., Ward, P. R., & Jones, M. (2015). Short horizons and obesity futures: Disjunctures between public health interventions and everyday temporalities. Social Science & Medicine, 128, 309–315.
World Health Organization. (2017). Taxes on sugary drinks: Why do it? Retrieved from http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/260253/WHO-NMH-PND-16.5Rev.1-eng.pdf;jsessionid=EDD383B6C4250C39F1946CC0403A1D3F?sequence=1
Yates-Doerr, E. (2012). The opacity of reduction: Nutritional black-boxing and the meanings of nourishment. Food, Culture & Society, 15(2), 293–313.
Zivkovic, T., Warin, M., Moore, V., Ward, P., & Jones, M. (2015). The sweetness of care: Biographies, bodies and place. In E. Abbotts, A. Lavis, & L. Attala (Eds.), Careful eating: Bodies, food and care (pp. 109–112). Farnham: Ashgate.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Warin, M., Zivkovic, T. (2019). Hide the Sugar!. In: Fatness, Obesity, and Disadvantage in the Australian Suburbs. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01009-6_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01009-6_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-01008-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-01009-6
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)