Please cite the published version https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk "Intensely white": psychology curricula and the (re)production of racism

Recent 'obesity' preventions focus heavily on children, widely regarded as the future of society. The National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) is a flagship government programme in England that annually measures the Body Mass Index (BMI) of children in Reception (aged 4-5) and Year 6 (aged 10-11) in order to identify 'at risk' children and offer advice to parents. Using Foucauldian discourse analysis this study explores how discourses within the programme construct fatness. The NCMP materials contain three key interrelated themes (concerning the hidden threat of 'obesity', the burden of 'obesity', and bodies that pose a greater risk) that combine to construct a 'grotesque discourse' of apocalyptic public health. 'Obesity' is constructed as a social and economic catastrophe where certain bodies pose a greater threat than others. We argue that this discourse has the potential to change health service policy in markedly regressive ways that will disproportionately impact working-class, Black, Asian, and mixed race families. Introduction: children, BMI, and biopower Recent decades have seen globally increasing media and medical concern over a socalled 'obesity epidemic', particularly among children (Hilton et al., 2012; Ogden et al.,

Research has highlighted damaging contradictions in the responsibilisation of mothers over children's health, at once held responsible for tackling “childhood obesity” while being cautious not to encourage children to become obsessive with their bodies. While research has highlighted discourses of blame and elucidated mothers’ experiences, less is known about how mothers negotiate discourse in their voiced accounts. Utilising Feminist Relational Discourse Analysis, this study analysed interviews with 12 mothers in England to explore their experiences of a nationally mandated BMI screening programme in schools and how discourses shape their voices and experiences. In negotiating complex and contradictory discourses of motherhood and fatness, participants expressed a “duty to protect” their children from both fatness and fatphobia. Negotiating these responsibilities left mothers feeling guilt at their personal “failure” to protect their children from one or both harms. Mothers did not take up these discourses unproblematically; they resisted them, yet felt constrained by “expert knowledges” of fatness and motherhood that had clear consequences in responsibilising mothers for the “harm” of fatness. This analysis calls attention to how dominant discourses function personally and politically to responsibilise mothers for the harm caused by state-sanctioned fatphobia.

Universities, white ignorance and historical amnesia '…there will be characteristic and pervasive patterns of not seeing and not knowingstructured white ignorance, motivated inattention, self-deception, historical amnesia, and moral rationalization -that people of color, for their own survival, have to learn to become familiar with and overcome in making their case for racial equality. ' Charles W. Mills (2003, p. 190) It may come as a surprise to some readers to learn that, in the early years of this century, all universities in Britain faced a series of legally binding responsibilities to address race inequities. Following the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report (Macpherson, 1999) the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 (RRAA) placed upon universities 'a statutory general duty to work to eliminate unlawful racial discrimination, and to promote equal opportunities and good race relations. The duty is not optional and colleges and universities have to meet it even if they have very few students from ethnic minority backgrounds' (CRE, 2002).Universities were required to analyse information about race equality pertaining to student access and achievement, and staff recruitment, retention and promotion. This data had to be published alongside the institutions' plans to address any inequities that were uncovered. For a brief period, it seemed that British universities (and institutions across the public sector) would finally have to take race equity seriously. But the moment was fleeting. Having reviewed the state of universities' planning, in 2003, Professor Gus John (one this country's leading race equality advocates) noted: 'There is a general reluctance to address issues of racisms and especially of institutional racisms' (Curtis & MacLeod, 2003). Currently universities have the option to sign up to the Race Equality Charter -a scheme that carries no financial penalty/benefit and where research suggests that it is racially minoritized staff who bear the burden of the necessary workload, but not the rewards (Bhopal & Henderson 2019;2021). This is what Charles Mills means by 'structured white ignorance ' and 'historical amnesia' (2003). This 'will to forget' institutional racism (Tate & Page, 2018: 141) explains how -two decades on from the RRAA -we come to be responding to an article about a White academic's 'challenging journey' as they researched students' experience of anti-Black racism in a university. If the relevant authorities, including successive governments and university leaders, had delivered on the rhetoric that followed the Lawrence Inquiry, the system would by now have mainstreamed a concern with race equity rather than seemly coming to yet another delayed recognition that they even have a problem.

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