Saxo Lecture: "Inequalities and rationalities of interventions for childhood obesity"
Saxo Lecture by Stanley Ulijaszek, University of Oxford.
The rationalities of low socioeconomic position
While the moral imperative for acting on childhood obesity is much more straightforward than it is for adults, the responsibility for maintaining a body within the expected norms of society is negotiated between a diversity of agents with different rationalities about
- food,
- physical activity,
- health,
- well-being,
- identity, and
- consumption.
In the case of parents of low socioeconomic position (SEP), daily demands are often in conflict with this responsibility. Parents and children of low SEP often have different rationalities for patterns of food consumption and physical activity from those of
- government (in food and health policies, for example),
- industry and farming (in food production, manufacture, marketing and retail), and
- non-governmental organisations that claim to represent consumers (of food, leisure and physical activity).
Intervening in the interest of government and industry
The multiple rationalities of childhood obesity regulation in the United Kingdom will be examined in this presentation, where the Food Network Responsibility Deal (FNRD) and Change4Life dominate the macro-level childhood obesity intervention landscape.
The FNRD links government and industry stakeholders, and places consumers as centrally responsible for acting upon healthy food consumption advice. Change4Life places responsibility on the individual parent and child for healthy lifestyles.
By employing market rationales and 'nudge' tactics, both FNRD and Change4Life make citizens responsible for enacting corporate and governmental public health interests. This presentation shows how the rationalities of government and industry overlap in this arena, but differ from those of parents and children of low SEP.
Registration
All interested are welcome to attend, free of charge (as long as there are available seats). However, you need to register no later than 1 December.
Map of KUA
Bio for Stanley Ulijaszek
Stanley Ulijaszek is a nutritional anthropologist whose work centres on the evolutionary basis for, and cultural diversity in, nutritional health. This includes both undernutrition and obesity, and the diseases associated with them. He has carried out research in India, Nepal, Sarawak, Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea, the Cook Islands, Poland and Australia.
He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Human Comparative Biology (Homo) and he is Director of the Unit for Biocultural Variation and Obesity. He is currently visiting professor at Copenhagen Centre for Health Research in the Humanities - CoRe - at the Saxo Institute.