Obesity, Eating Disorders and the Media

How do the media represent obesity and eating disorders? How are these representations related to one another? And how do the news media select which scientific findings and policy decisions to report? Multi-disciplinary in approach, Obesity, Eating Disorders and the Media presents critical new perspectives on media representations of obesity and eating disorders, with analyses of print, online, and televisual media framings. Exploring abjection and alarm as the common themes linking media framings of obesity and eating disorders, Obesity, Eating Disorders and the Media shows how the media similarly position these conditions as dangerous extremes of body size and food practice. The volume then investigates how news media selectively cover and represent science and policy concerning obesity and eating disorders, with close attention to the influence of pre-existing framings alongside institutional and moral agendas. A rich, comprehensive analysis of media framings of obesity and eating disorders - as embodied conditions, complex disorders, public health concerns, and culturally significant phenomena - this volume will be of interest to scholars and students across the social sciences and all those interested in understanding cultural aspects of obesity and eating disorders.

’This wide-ranging collection challenges the popular polarisation of obese and emaciated bodies and provokes critical reflection on the ways in which such bodies - and knowledge about them - are framed, constructed, mediated and mobilised. Materialities, discourse and lived experiences are masterfully drawn together in a dynamic discussion that traverses print, television and social media. The resulting account of the multiple entanglements between media, science, policy and practice is a must read for anyone concerned with this critical field of study.’ Emma-Jayne Abbots, University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, UK ’This thoroughly researched, critically sensitive and timely collection of scholarly analyses of news media coverage of eating disorders and obesity exemplifies the value of investigating news as a key arena for wider struggles over the definition and responses to major social problems. This volume will be of great interest and value to students and scholars in the disciplines of media studies, cultural studies, health, and sociology, especially those who are investigating health issues and the media.’ Catriona Bonfiglioli, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

Karin Eli is Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford, UK. Stanley Ulijaszek is Professor of Anthropology at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology and Director of the Unit for Biocultural Variation and Obesity and of the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Oxford, UK. He is co-editor of Insecurity, Inequality, and Obesity in Affluent Societies; The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Growth and Development; Health Change in the Asia-Pacific Region; and Holistic Anthropology: Emergence and Convergence, and editor of Health Intervention in Less Developed Nations.