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Alternative Childhood Obesity Treatment in Age of Obesity Panic

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Book cover Play and Recreation, Health and Wellbeing

Part of the book series: Geographies of Children and Young People ((GCYP,volume 9))

Abstract

Concerns related to childhood obesity have increased dramatically in recent years with calls for immediate action through prevention and treatment efforts. While the rates of childhood obesity have increased globally, critical obesity scholars have raised concerns over the manner in which the notion of obesity has been constructed, suggesting that weight alone is a poor predictor of health and the conflation of weight and health may be resulting in growing panic over body size. Furthermore, the work of critical geographers has illustrated how the concept of “obesogenic” environments may also be implicated in reinforcing the weight-focused paradigm and in stigmatizing those who present in nonnormative bodies. This chapter presents an overview of a feminist poststructural study conducted within a childhood obesity treatment program that challenged dominant notions of obesity and emphasized acceptance of natural body sizes. The chapter begins with a discussion of literature that implicates obesity panic in the growing rates of fat stigma and questions the notion of obesogenic environment as a solution to the obesity “problem.” It also provides examples of narratives elicited from program coordinators and child participants that explicate how the program was designed, how the children reacted to the alternative approach, and how the program space became a safe haven where the children could define themselves as “healthy” subjects.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Nursing Studies, 100 Forest Rd, A1A 1E5, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

    Pamela Ward

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  1. Pamela Ward
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Correspondence to Pamela Ward .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

    Bethan Evans

  2. Centre of Children and Youth, The University of Northampton, Northampton, United Kingdom

    John Horton

  3. Department of Geography, National University of Singapore Department of Geography, Singapore, Singapore

    Tracey Skelton

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Ward, P. (2016). Alternative Childhood Obesity Treatment in Age of Obesity Panic. In: Evans, B., Horton, J., Skelton, T. (eds) Play and Recreation, Health and Wellbeing. Geographies of Children and Young People, vol 9. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4585-51-4_27

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