ABSTRACT

Research and policy on children’s food consumption commonly highlights the unequal impact of obesogenic environments on their health. Yet obesogenic theories risk pathologising certain communities, when assuming fixed relationships between ‘unhealthy’ environments and ‘obese’ bodies, and neglecting children’s multi-layered relationships to food and health. Drawing on participatory photomapping with 11–12-year-old girls in an urban Irish working-class neighbourhood, this study conceptualises children’s food environments as dynamic, regulatory assemblages which involve multi-layered ‘pushes and pulls’ of ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ foods, experiences and norms. Such foods, experiences and norms are related to in a variety of ways in the girls’ negotiation of belonging, bargain-hunting and body-shaming. The analysis challenges fixed, binary, adult-centred, classed and gendered ideas about healthy/unhealthy child bodies, foods and environments. We argue that viewing food environments as assemblages invites ‘obesogenic’ policy and research to inclusively engage children’s dynamic and multi-layered capacities to act, feel and desire around food.

摘要

关于儿童食品消费的研究和政策通常强调肥胖环境对其健康的不平等影响。然而，当假设“不健康”环境和“肥胖”身体之间存在固定关系，而忽视儿童与食物和健康的多层次关系时，致肥胖理论可能会使某些社区病态化。本研究利用爱尔兰城市工人阶级社区中 11 至 12 岁女孩的参与式照片测绘，将儿童的食物环境概念化为动态的、监管组合，其中涉及“健康”和“不健康”的多层“推拉” ' 食物、经验和规范。这些食物、经历和规范以多种方式与女孩的归属感谈判、讨价还价和羞辱身体有关。分析挑战固定、二进制、关于健康/不健康儿童身体、食物和环境的以成人为中心、分类和性别观念。我们认为，将食物环境视为集合体会引发“致肥胖”政策和研究，以包容儿童在食物周围行动、感受和渴望的动态和多层次能力。