Date of Award

Spring 5-12-2011

Degree Type

Capstone Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Studies (BA)

Department

Cultural Studies

First Advisor

Carmelo Estrerrich

Abstract

How is it that Americans are so obsessed with nutrition and dieting and yet remain unhealthy? This project attempts to give a theoretically driven answer to this great paradox within the Western diet. Constance Calice analyzes the practice and rhetoric of dieting as a crystallization of a problematic relationship to food using a Foucauldian understanding of discipline. Using examples from the media, she illustrates the way in which outside forces effect our food choices and the power relationships formed in this exchange. To offer an alternative view to nutritionism she looks to the Local Food Movement and affect theory to illustrate how we can understand food and eating in such a way that incorporates the personal, emotional, spiritual and cultural aspects of food rather than as a collection nutritional components.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

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