Recently a proliferation and intensification of school programmes that are directed towards teaching children and young people about food has been witnessed. Whilst there is much to learn about food, anxieties concerning the obesity epidemic have dramatically shaped how schools address the topic. This article draws on governmentality to consider 'the conditions of possibility' for teaching about food in contemporary times. In particular the form that knowledge about food takes in the midst of an obesity epidemic, the authorities on which it draws for its legitimacy and the learnings made possible are considered. To do this two Australian studies investigating students' engagement with school-health knowledge are considered. It is suggested that the obesity epidemic has potently shaped the ways schools seek to teach about food and the possibilities for how young people come to understand their own, and others', food choices.
In this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight Victorian swimming coaches to examine the discourses of disability1 and inclusion that they expressed in relation to their current coaching practices. Analysis specifically pursued links between neoliberalism, ableism, elitism, classification and inclusion in coaching, with the intention of exploring what discourse relations are possible, imaginable and practical within what have been referred to as neoliberal-ableist times. Findings reveal that coaches replicate and reproduce elitist, ableist assumptions about the body and sport. The discussion prompts a consideration of how rationalities and techniques of inclusion are limited under the prevailing political context.
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