My weekend readings, they relate to current events. 10 November 2009 11:09 am
Posted by Tracy in : culture,geekery,health,health at every size,history,monkeys,news,politics,random,reading,school,society , View CommentsSo like I mentioned yesterday, I read a lot this weekend (more so than usual even), because I had a new deadline on top of the stuff assigned for class: two of my NYU library books were recalled. (A third book is also now due the 20th, so I’ve got just a little time to keep that one on the back burner for a bit. Anyway.) Book #1 was Weighty Issues: Fatness and Thinness as Social Problems, edited by Jeffery Sobal and Donna Maurer (1999). We read the introduction to an earlier Maurer and Sobal book, Eating Agendas: Food and Nutrition as Social Problems (1995) earlier this term at the start of Marion Nestle’s food sociology class, and it was so interesting I got the whole book out of the library, which in turn led me to some of Sobal and Maurer’s other books, namely Weighty Issues and Book #2: Interpreting Weight: The Social Management of Fatness and Thinness (also 1999). Anyway.
The centerpiece for today’s post is from Chapter 3 of Weighty Issues, “Fat Boys and Goody Girls: Hilde Bruch’s Work on Eating Disorders and the American Anxiety about Democracy, 1930-1960″ by Paula Saukko. I promise you, it’s awesome. Saukko takes a historical case study about some early research into eating disorders, and uses it to demonstrate how health theory and practice is a reflection of its social, cultural, political, and historical context. I was so not expecting this piece to be great, and then (more…)
Belated randomness! Now with extra funny! 28 October 2009 5:32 pm
Posted by Tracy in : books,culture,fast food,food snobbery,fun,funny,health,health at every size,media,nutrition,random,video , View CommentsI don’t know about the rest of you, but I find regular laughter to be an essential component of a balanced media consumption lifestyle, right along with serious hard-thinking stuff like class readings. (For sociology next week I had to choose between Barry Popkin’s The World is Fat and Hank Cardello and ghostwriter Doug Carr’s Stuffed: An Insider’s Look at Who’s (Really) Making America Fat. Yeah, that’s rough. But the Popkin book is shorter and not based on the premise that only the food industry can save us from ourselves, so it wins, even if it may yet force a ranty post or two out of me.) I digress. Here’s a few instances of food politics in pop culture that helped me keep things in perspective: (more…)
What are you up to today, Tracy? 15 October 2009 10:56 am
Posted by Tracy in : Harold McGee,books,cooking,culture,fangirl,food as spectator sport,fun,geekery,good news,media,school,thank you Thursday , View CommentsWhy thank you, hypothetical question, I’m glad you asked! Check this out:
The New York University Fales Library,
Steinhardt School of Culture, Education
and Human Development, Department of
Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health;
and Clark Wolf cordially invite you to:
