Childhood obesity ?epidemic? has more causes than inactivity and poor food choices

Does Canada have a crisis of inactive, obese kids? Research by Dr. Lisa McDermott, whose work provides cultural and political analyses of physical inactivity and obesity, suggests that if one were to answer this question based on how these issues are framed and represented for public understanding, the answer would be a definitive 'yes'.

McDermott, however, counsels that instead of drawing this conclusion it's important to question our present certainties about what we know regarding obesity and inactivity, and how we should act.

Her work, which provides a critical textual analysis of representations of childhood obesity and inactivity in the public health media, by experts, federal and provincial governments and non-governmental organisations, sheds light on how these representations have framed the public's understanding of these issues, which is increasingly, and unquestioningly, accepted as being of epidemic proportion.

"As a scholar influenced by Michel Foucault's work, one of the things that I'm interested in querying is our present certainties, and I believe the public discourses of physical inactivity and obesity provide an important context for doing that," says McDermott. Her interest in exploring these issues was spurred in part by what she heard students say in her health education class.

"I was struck by the students' deeply entrenched belief and certainty that childhood inactivity and obesity are serious, epidemic-sized problems facing the Canadian nation; that these issues are largely due to uninformed and irresponsible parents not modelling 'good' behaviour about active healthy lifestyles, and that parents are ultimately allowing their kids to spend too much time in front of a television or computer screen," she says. Class discussions invariably centred on the need simply to educate parents and children about the importance of making the right "choices" about their physical activity and healthy eating habits.

"From my perspective as a sociologist the students' understanding of, and 'solutions' to, these 'problems' not only reproduced the dominant view of obesity as just being an issue of energy imbalance between expended and consumed energy, but also they constructed these issues as simply about individuals making the "right" health "choices." But choice is inevitably a relative and political thing: what may be a choice for some individuals may not be a choice at all for others given their life circumstances. We're more inclined to ask what are the lifestyle choices that you as an individual can make as opposed to looking at how our society is structured, which ultimately limits the ability of particular groups within our society to pursue good health. Class is a significant factor in relation to obesity. Yet the way it's discussed and the strategies focussed on in order to address it are primarily in terms of behavioural modification," she says.

McDermott suggests that obesity, in particular, is an incredibly complex issue, with multiple scholarly perspectives being brought to bear regarding understanding it. This includes different areas of medicine, exercise physiology, nutrition, and psychology. "The reality of science today is that it's characterised by specialisations. That necessarily puts us in a situation whereby we're reliant on other areas of expertise to provide their particular piece to the obesity puzzle. But when that expert knowledge comes to be recontextualized from one area to another, for example, from medicine to health promotion or PE, the debate and complexity surrounding it at a scientific level has been stripped away such that when this knowledge is conveyed to the public, including our students, it appears certain as opposed to still being debated, contingent ideas. And that necessarily carries with it social and political consequences."

Her study, titled "A governmental analysis of children at risk in a world of physical inactivity and obesity epidemics", won the prestigious Sociology of Sport Journal Outstanding Article Award awarded at the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport at its annual conference in November last year.

Exploring the notion of children being 'at risk', McDermott explains that when we label something a risk, "it serves to make it - obesity or inactivity - governable in particular kinds of ways, serving particular social, cultural and political functions."

"That creates a socio-political climate that legitimizes the creation of policies, as well as forms of interventions, surveillance and regulation by active living and obesity experts, who expertise comes to be embodied in normatively coercive practices or practices with which we voluntarily comply, in the interests of each and all."

McDermott says it's vital to look at issues like obesity from many angles, including cultural, economic and political perspectives, if we want to really address it meaningfully.