Eating for Two?

Abstract

This chapter picks up the threads of the previous chapter by weaving together themes around the negotiation of self and identity in pregnancy through the lenses of eating and consumption. This chapter explores how my participants’ pregnant bodies were constructed as being ‘at risk’ of numerous environmental and medical threats: their bodies were also viewed as being ‘at risk’ based on the lifestyle choices made by the mother-to-be and their cumulative effects upon her developing foetus. As I shall show, prenatal eating and drinking are positioned as moral issues when the wellbeing of the foetus and the autonomy of the mother are at stake.