You are warmly invited to the following event, taking place on campus:

"The (In)Visible Inequalities of the Attack on Sugar"
Prof Karen Throsby (University of Leeds)

Abstract:

Since the early 2010s, sugar has found itself the subject of a proliferating raft of newspaper articles, popular science books, self-help guides and national and international policies, supplanting dietary fat in the public imagination as the primary cause of obesity. The framing of sugar as the dietary enemy du jour has a commonsense appeal, breathing new life into the foundering ‘war on obesity’ and aligning easily with the rhetorics of individual responsible citizenship and household economy that characterise both austerity politics and responses to the current cost-of-living crisis. Sugar reduction, we are repeatedly told, will boost individual wellbeing, reduce health and welfare costs and protect the NHS. It is, we are assured, a win for all, if only people will do their part. But I want to argue that despite the appealing simplicity of a single-nutrient public health campaign and its optimistic promises of good for all, the weight of these expectations falls very unevenly onto those who are already most marginalised in society. Drawing on evidence from news, policy, popular science, self-help and media sources, and focusing on the social inequalities of gender, race and class, the talk explores the ways in which those most disadvantaged are defined as targets for intervention while discrediting the difficult lived realities within which food choices are made, rendering those people simultaneously hyper-visible and invisible. I argue that this focus on food choices rather than political choices is an act of damaging foreclosure, masquerading as care, that not only sets the terms of the debate but also delimits the solutions we can imagine, compounding rather than alleviating disadvantage and marginalisation.

Speaker Bio:

Karen Throsby is Professor of Gender Studies and Head of the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds. Her research focuses on the intersecting issues of gender, technology, the body, health and food, which she has explored in relation to reproductive technology, surgical weight management, endurance sport, menopause and, most recently, the social life of sugar. She is the author of When IVF Fails: Feminism, Infertility and the Negotiation of Normality (2004, Palgrave), Immersion: Marathon Swimming, Embodiment and Identity (Manchester University Press, 2016) and Sugar Rush: Science, Politics and the Demonisation of Fatness (Manchester University Press, 2023).

This face to face seminar is free and open to all, but advance registration is required.

To register for a place, CLICK HERE.

If you have any questions about the event, please email cswg-events@warwick.ac.uk

If you have accessibility requirements or there are any adjustments we can make to support your full participation, you can let us know through the booking page. 

This event is organised by the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender in collaboration with the Institute for Global Sustainable Development. If you wish to receive information about CSWG events, please subscribe to our mailing list.