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

by John Coveney

Overview

Why does our appetite for food pleasures make us feel anxious? This fresh and updated edition traces our complex relationship with food and eating, along with our preoccupation with diet, self-discipline and food guilt.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781134184484
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/27/2006
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	482 KB

Table of Contents

List of tables     viii
Preface     ix
Introduction     xii
Foucault, discourse, power and the subject     1
The governmentality of modern nutrition     15
The Greeks to the Christians: from ethics to guilt     25
Religion and reason: the emergence of a discourse on nutrition     46
Paupers, prisoners and moral panics: refining the meaning of nutrition     65
The nutritional policing of families     76
Nutrition landscapes in late modernity     92
Nutrition homescapes in late modernity     107
An ethnography of family food: subjects of food choice     122
The governmentality of girth     141
Conclusions     157
Appendix     162
Notes     164
References     165
Index     181

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