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The current preoccupation with body weight in western cultures is arguably unprecedented. The obesity crisis has engaged not only health communities, but numerous other public and private organisations, and, in so doing, has created moral alarm as well as a medical crisis. This paper examines the development of obesity and will discuss the ways in which fatness has been rationalised within health discourses. It will explore the way that the corpulent body, once historically considered as a physiological state, is now regarded as a state of moral pathology representing an 'epidemic'. The prospect of this disease sweeping through populations, reaching into virtually every social group, is presented as all the more frightening when no known effective prevention or cure is at hand. The paper will look at the ways in which new forms of government have developed with the panoptic capacity to gaze across populations and objectify the everyday activities of individuals. This 'government of girth' reaches an apogee in the problematisation of children and body weight. Three subject positions in childhood provide a number of opportunities to problematise children: the sick child, the anti-social child, and the innocent child. Each of these amplifies concern about the state of health of children, the permissive nature of parenting and potential moral social decay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a tendency for researchers and practitioners to overlook the needs and experiences of children and young people in relation to disasters. In this paper, we report on our exploration of the question of whether to involve children and young people in post-bushfire research, and if so how? In considering children's rights in this context we were guided by a number of conceptions of the child (reflecting research debates within the Sociology of Childhood): The citizen child; the child at risk; and the developing child. We engaged in formal, progressive consultations with experts internationally and with bushfire affected community partners. This study determined that research with children post-bushfires was an important, ethical and appropriate activity, provided the methodology was sensitive and allowed children to provide informed consent and to have a sense of control over the issues being discussed. We conclude that carefully considering a rights approach materially changed the final methodology that includes the perspectives of children and young people in research about recovery from traumatic disasters, while still respecting their right to be safe and supported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary Western societies focus considerable policy and media attention on the 'epidemic of childhood obesity'. In this paper we examine the mobilisation of notions of responsibility and consumption in these discussions, and consider the implications they have for women as mothers. In particular, we are interested to explore the potential conflicts mothers face as care providers and nurturers when responsible care is framed as withholding or managing the food consumption of children. We argue that the competing discursive frameworks around mothers' food provision invite further theorisation that explicitly addresses nourishment and consumption as elements of maternal practice and care. We draw on the work of Neysmith and Reitsma-Street (2005) regarding 'provisioning' to undertake a critical examination of the discourses in the 'childhood obesity' epidemic, with particular attention to Australian media and policy discussions. According to Neysmith and Reitsma-Street, mothers are central to social 'provisioning', that is, the labour that secures the necessities of life. This provisioning framework captures paid market work and unpaid caring labour, policy settings and social locations, allowing for a rich conceptualisation of the conditions mothers negotiate as they provide for their children. Taking up the possibilities of this framework, we argue that, insofar as health risks and responsibilities are largely individualised, mothering is framed as primarily about giving, and childhood obesity is considered a disease of affluence and over-consumption, imperatives for maternal provisioning and nurture are potentially in conflict with critiques of consumption and excess. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Healthy eating in schools is central to UK Government attempts to redress nutritional deficiencies and combat childhood obesity. However, there is little consideration of the local, contextual spatial factors that contribute to the ways in which particular policy initiatives are experienced at the school level. This paper presents findings from an evaluation of the 'Eat Well Do Well' programme in Kingston-upon-Hull, UK: an innovative scheme providing free, healthy food to all primary school children. Data is presented from an ethnographic study of two case study schools illustrating how notions of 'spatiality' augment our understanding of the ways policy intention is mediated. We consider the potential of primary school meals policy to address health inequalities using the concept of 'spatiality' to examine the interconnections between the aesthetic, temporal, social and spatial elements of school dining environments. We conclude optimistically, suggesting that an engagement by health policy developers with what we call the 'spatial imagination', might be useful in examining and developing factors that ensure the effectiveness of interventions addressing the determinants of ill health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Households are important health contexts, providing social, emotional, financial and material support, but little is known about the role of household composition in the social etiology of Indigenous health. Our research is framed by an Indigenous standpoint, using eight waves of data from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children. We investigated whether household composition and change in household composition were associated with the self-reported general health of Indigenous children and their mothers, adjusting for socioeconomic, household structure and social support factors. Our measure of household composition comprised eight groups differentiating lone and couple parents, living with and without other children and adults. Study children in couple households with other children and adults were 16% less likely to have excellent health and mothers in these same households were 7% less likely to report excellent health than children and mothers in couple households. We find little evidence that mothers in lone parent households have poorer health than mothers in couple households, after adjustment for covariates. Change in household composition was positively associated with health for both children and mothers. The results caution against presuming a direct translatability of research findings from non-Indigenous to Indigenous Peoples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last two decades, childhood obesity has emerged as a major public health issue in Switzerland. Health professionals and public health organisations now frame this condition as a disease that requires medical intervention. In this article, I report the findings of an ethnographic study conducted in a Swiss hospital program for the management of childhood obesity. The study explored the impact of the medical treatment of childhood obesity on children's lives. Using a Bourdieusian approach to guide my analysis, I found that the experience of the therapy varies substantially according to children's socioeconomic position. Children with a high SES seem to encounter less difficulties in adapting their lifestyle to professionals' recommendations than low SES children, because their habitus facilitates the internalisation of health norms and they have greater access to economic, social and cultural capitals. Therefore, childhood obesity management tends to reproduce health inequalities between children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few years, various international public health organizations such as the World Health Organization or the European Commission have recommended the worldwide dissemination of evidence-based mental health prevention programs. This public health ideal, relying on new scientific disciplines, is at the origin of multiple controversies in a number of countries. This article contributes to bring a reflection on the ways political experts, researchers and practitioners have integrated these new preventive strategies. More precisely, the objective is to present and to discuss the results of a qualitative study on French professionals' representations and theoretical perspectives with regards to evidence-based parenting programs. Results are based on ethnographical inquiries in French public health institutions and on 12 semi-structured interviews with professionals. The results demonstrate three ways to conceive parenting support, themselves attached to distinct anthropological, socio-political and interventional models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Virtual memorials' intended to memorialize the lives of children imply significant shifts in the conceptualization of death, particularly for grieving parents. Created by parents in memory of their deceased children, on-line memorials constructed using templates reflect strong cultural beliefs about the nature of childhood deaths, grief and the development of a kind of digital afterlife. Virtual memorials create a new social value for the deceased, and shift death and bereavement from private into more public experiences. Building upon this work, we describe a kind of 'on-line immortality' created through virtual memorials where the virtual presence of the deceased in text and images, and practices intended to sustain a relationship with the deceased, can extend bereavement and the social lives of the dead indefinitely. While such memorials can offer solace, they also potentiate business opportunities for those hoping to create lasting customers. As such, they may also extend mourning indefinitely. This may be especially true for certain kinds of deeply problematic deaths, such as those of children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Newspapers are a highly influential media that reflect and powerfully influence the views and cultural practices of individuals and societies. Study of phenomena using the media as a lens can provide new insights and understandings into how a phenomenon is culturally constructed and understood. This current study sought to explore media coverage of maternal grief following child death and loss. Articles published in major Australian newspapers over three months were gathered and analysed using a thematic approach. Findings showed that the tragic mother, a noble victim of suffering, is a powerful maternal image in the media. There were two key ways women as mothers were represented in their grief: as tragic heroes, and; as moral guides and activists. Using an interdisciplinary approach that references classical and modern interpretations of tragedy, this study interrogates how our culture imbues child death with dignity because of the quality of maternal grief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]