Food Bullying at the Intersection of Environmental Crime and Health Discourses of Food Advice

• In Event: Green Criminology 2

Abstract

What to eat and why? These questions may bite back. Processes of neoliberal governance are not exempt from systems of social discipline. Through biopolitical constructions of the ‘new normal’, decisions and practices involving food can be understood in terms of governance. This is evident in situations where individuals with food allergies, dietary restrictions, or specific food-lifestyles and knowledges are threatened or ridiculed. This project contextualizes food decisions, (re)actions, and judgments within the intersection of two influential components of food advice. First, the continual concerns of weight, diet, and nutrition are considered as part of the ongoing debate concerning the correlation between food and health. Second, the more recent concerns of sustainable foods, green eating, and local cuisine are considered as key issues involved in the connection between food and Environmental Crime. Through relational content analyses of a sample of food advice texts, including government, expert, corporate, food movement, and parenting sources, this project explores how food advice is being ‘given’ in order to predict how these messages effect their audience. The aim is to understand how food advice sources engage with concerns of (both) health and environment, and how this influences the occurrence, form, and persistence of food bullying.

Author

• Allison Gray, University of Windsor