Food, Morals and Meaning: The Pleasure and Anxiety of Eating

by John Coveney

Overview

First published in 2006. Food, Morals and Meaning examines our need to discipline our desires, our appetites and our pleasures at the table. However, instead of seeing this discipline as dominant or oppressive it argues that a rationalisation of pleasure plays a positive role in our lives, allowing us to better understand who we are. The book begins by exploring the way that concerns about food, the body and pleasure were prefigured in antiquity and then how these concerns were recast in early Christianity as problems of 'natural' appetite which had to be curbed. The following chapters discuss how scientific knowledge about food was constructed out of philosophical and religious concerns about indulgence and excess in 18th and 19th Century Europe. Finally, by using research collected from in-depth interviews with families, the last section focuses on the social organisation of food in the modern home to illustrate the ways that the meal table now incorporates the principles of nutrition as a form of moral training, especially for children. Food, Morals and Meaning will be essential reading for those studying nutrition, public health, sociology of health and illness and sociology of the body.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415376211
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/11/2006
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Preface to Second Edition Preface 1. Foucault, Discourse, Power and the Subject 2. Governmentality of Modern Nutrition 3. Greeks to the Christians: From Ethics to Guilt 4. Religion and Reason: The Emergence of a Discourse on Nutrition 5. Paupers, Prisoners and Moral Panics 6. The Nutritional Policing of Families 7. Nutrition Landscapes 8. Nutrition Homescapes 9. An Ethnography of Family Food: Subjects of Food Choice 10. The Governmentality of Girth 11. Conclusions Appendix References

Editorial Reviews

'A strong contribution to the sociological understanding of food and its relation to social life has been made even stronger in this new edition. Of particular value are Coveney’s additions to his discussions of food morality in the context of Foucaultian notions of governmentality, especially in the new chapter on the governmentality of girth.'- Alex McIntosh, Professor of Sociology and Member, Faculty of Nutrition, Texas A&M University

Understanding the complex juxtapositions of the enjoyment and the pain we derive from food is the core business of John Coveney's fascinating work…This book is a 'must read' for anyone interested in the social meanings of eating. - Dr Karen Campbell, School of Exercise and Nutrition, Deakin University, Australia

In this major contribution to the food sociology literature, John Coveney insightfully applies a Foucaultian analysis to expose the multifarious ways in which the government of parental and child conduct is enacted. This book is highly relevant for those in the fields of childhood nutrition, health promotion, dietetics, and food sociology. - John Germov, The University of Newcastle Co-editor of A Sociology of Food and Nutrition: The Social Appetite (2004)

From the Publisher