Doing the ‘right thing’? Children, families and fatness in Ireland

Abstract

Set up against the background of increasing concerns in the Irish media and government discourses around a childhood obesity epidemic since the 2000s, this chapter critically unpicks the ways in which particular truths are created about childhood obesity by a complex range of institutional actors, and become the basis for interventions and actions targeted at particular groups. Specifically, it explores how data from the National Longitudinal Study of Children, Growing up in Ireland (GUI) has been used to construct a particular reality of the ‘problem’ of childhood obesity, grounded in an uncritical acceptance of medical norms and instruments (such as the Body Mass Index). This chapter points to the sheer complexity of both the institutional actors (medical and social scientists, policy makers, and the media), and types of knowledges, invoked in the problematisation of obesity, whilst also highlighting the limits of interventions that place responsibility for tackling the ‘risk’ of obesity at the feet of children, parents (and most specifically, mothers), and schools through individualised interventions to act on the behaviours and bodies of children.

Media, ‘Fat Panic’ and Public Pedagogy: Mapping Contested Terrain

“…Operation Transformation is one such example in Ireland. This programme is aired within a larger state apparatus of governmentality that has been critiqued for being misguided at best and, more seriously, deflecting attention from broader issues affecting health, such as poverty and inequality (Share & Share, ).…”