Emotion in obesity discourse: understanding public attitudes towards regulations for obesity prevention

Abstract

Intense concern about obesity in the public imagination and in political, academic and media discourses has catalysed advocacy efforts to implement regulatory measures to reduce the occurrence of obesity in Australia and elsewhere. This article explores public attitudes towards the possible implementation of regulations to address obesity by analysing emotions within popular discourses. Drawing on reader comments attached to obesity-relevant news articles published on Australian news and current affairs websites, we examine how popular anxieties about the 'obesity crisis' and vitriol directed at obese individuals circulate alongside understandings of the appropriate role of government to legitimise regulatory reform to address obesity. Employing Ahmed's theorisation of 'affective economies' and broader literature on emotional cultures, we argue that obesity regulations achieve popular support within affective economies oriented to neoliberal and individualist constructions of obesity. These economies preclude constructions of obesity as a structural problem in popular discourse; instead positioning anti-obesity regulations as a government-endorsed vehicle for discrimination directed at obese people. Findings implicate a new set of ethical challenges for those championing regulatory reform for obesity prevention.

Why do the public support or oppose obesity prevention regulations? Results from a South Australian population survey

“…This finding may also reflect a lack of trust in governments to deliver on distributive promises: according to a recent Scanlon Foundation Survey, those in low‐income groups have very low trust in government to “do the right thing for the Australian people,” while those in the most prosperous group are more likely than average to trust the government . Distrust of governments and cynicism about government objectives have been identified in our previous research as important barriers to popular support for obesity prevention regulations . Our findings point to a need to investigate more thoroughly the impact of regulations on those who experience socio‐economic disadvantage, in order to identify barriers to healthy diets which need to be addressed concurrently in order to optimise the effectiveness of regulatory obesity interventions.…”

“…In this scenario, the extent to which opposition can be reduced through improved communication about the socio‐ecological causes of obesity is uncertain . Attending to the ideological and moralising foundations of public views about preventive obesity regulations demonstrated in the survey and in our previous research may be more fruitful for improving alignment between preventive obesity policies and public views.…”

“…This study was undertaken for an Australian National Preventive Health Agency (ANPHA) grant project, as part of a larger sequential mixed methods program of work to identify acceptable and feasible regulations for the prevention of obesity in Australia. Development of questions for the survey was informed by findings from a previous qualitative study of public attitudes towards obesity prevention regulations . Those findings included that, in many instances, the reasons underpinning public support coalesced around the role of regulations in promoting personal responsibility for preventing obesity and in ascribing blame to obese individuals.…”

Mobile activism, material imaginings, and the ethics of the edible: Framing political engagement through the Buycott app

“…Methodologically, we approach our data from a digital anthropology perspective that frames virtual discourses as culturally significant utterances, implicating modes of understanding and affect, with the anthropologist acting as a participant-observer, rather than directly eliciting user discourses (Boellstorff, 2012). We also draw on recent qualitative studies in media and communications (Reilly and Trevisan, 2015) and public health (Farrell et al, 2015) that suggest that online discursive spaces, such as social media and newspaper comment sections, provide fruitful domains in which to examine popular affective engagement with politically valent issues. In analyzing Buycott's discursive shaping through online texts, we are mindful of critiques that call for a virtual ethnography that transcends the online/offline divide and integrates the analysis of online engagements with 'real world' interviews and observations (Hine, 2008;Sade-Beck, 2004).…”

(Dis)abling practices and theories?: exploring chronic illness in disability studies

“…For example, a central current health policy focus across much of the Global North is obesity, with much of the priority being placed on how it is a result of trends in living (prevalence of high sugar content foods and drinks and lack of exercise) and that what is needed is behaviour change by effected individuals. Instead critical work on disability and chronic illness is repositioning the investigation away from the apparent causes of obesity, towards targeting the discrimination experienced by people judged to be overweight (Farrell et al 2016) and the social production of the health problem in the first place via the category of obesity and the use of measures such as the Body Mass Index (Mussap, Manger, and Gold 2016). …”