
Weighing In
Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism
Julie Guthman(Author)
University of California Press
1st Edition
Published on 5. November 2011
Book
Paperback/Softback
248 pages
978-0-520-26625-4 (ISBN)
Description
"Weighing In" takes on the 'obesity epidemic,' challenging many widely held assumptions about its causes and consequences. Julie Guthman examines fatness and its relationship to health outcomes to ask if our efforts to prevent "obesity" are sensible, efficacious, or ethical. She also focuses the lens of obesity on the broader food system to understand why we produce cheap, over-processed food, as well as why we eat it. Guthman takes issue with the currently touted remedy to obesity - promoting food that is local, organic, and farm fresh. While such fare may be tastier and grown in more ecologically sustainable ways, this approach can also reinforce class and race inequalities and neglect other possible explanations for the rise in obesity, including environmental toxins. Arguing that ours is a political economy of bulimia - one that promotes consumption while also insisting upon thinness - Guthman offers a complex analysis of our entire economic system.
Reviews / Votes
"Weighing In is the book that fat studies and critical geographers of fat have been waiting for." -- Deborah McPhail, University of Manitoba Social & Cultural Geography "Guthman usefully challenges healthism in obesity research and food movements where consumption eclipses production." -- Lee F. Monaghan Sociology Of Health & IllnessMore details
Series
Edition
First Edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Berkerley
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
2 maps, 1 table
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
318 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-520-26625-4 (9780520266254)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Book
11/2011
1st Edition
University of California Press
€51.94
Article exhausted; check different version

E-Book
11/2011
1st Edition
Naval Institute Press
€28.99
Available for download
Person
Julie Guthman is Professor of Social Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the author of Agrarian Dreams? The Paradox of Organic Farming in California (UC Press)