Disputing the Problem

Abstract

I look beyond the mainstream and established experts to constructions of obesity at the margins, which dispute the nature or very existence of this purported problem. These are narratives that, contra the usual focus on the efforts of civil society actors to gain attention for issue, actively seek to push obesity off the public agenda. Intriguingly, my analysis here identifies two narratives that push from opposite ends of the spectrum. One is a Nanny State account, associated with a reactionary worldview, that cautions against state involvement of any kind and which, contra prevailing wisdom, is almost confined to the fringes of the press. The other marginal account, in contrast, is a Moral Panic narrative founded in activist critique and critical social science of public health, which questions the extent or even existence of the obesity epidemic. Both, I show, lack credibility within established expert committees and other policymaking venues, bringing to light subtle processes of exclusion and marginalisation in the contest over the public agenda that can limit what seems feasible in elite or formal policy settings, especially in the Australian case.