Body knowledge and control : studies in the sociology of physical education and culture

Today'snbsp;societynbsp;is obsessednbsp;with the body, its size, shape and healthiness. Governments, business and the popular media, spend and earn fortunes encouraging populations to get healthy, eat properly, exercise daily and get thin. But how are currentnbsp;social trends and attitudes towards the body reflected in the curriculum of schools, in the teaching of Physical Education and Health? How do teachers and health professionals influence young people's experiences of their own and others' bodies? Is health education liberating or merely another form of regulation and social control?

Drawing together some of the latest research on the body and schooling, Body Knowledge and Control offers a sharp and challenging critique of (post) modern-day attitudes toward obesity, health, childhood and the mainstream science and business interests that promote narrow body-centred ways of thinking. Includes:

* A critical history of notions of body, identity and health in schools.
* Analysis of the 'obesity epidemic', eating disorders
* Analysisnbsp;of the influence of nurtured body image in racism, sexism, homophobia and body elitism in schools.

Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xxiii
1 Pedagogy, Symbolic Control, Identity and Health	p. 3
2 Post-Structural Methodologies	p. 19
Part II The Social Context of Physical Education and Health	p. 33
3 Sociology, the Body and Health in a Risk Society	p. 35
4 Towards a Critical History of the Body, Identity and Health	p. 52
5 An Elephant in the Room and a Bridge Too Far, or Physical Education and the 'Obesity Epidemic'	p. 68
6 The Discursive Production of Childhood, Identity and Health	p. 83
7 The Body and Health in Policy	p. 96
8 'the Beauty Walk'	p. 115
9 Health and Physical Education and the Production of the 'At Risk Self'	p. 130
10 Gendered Bodies and Physical Identities	p. 140
11 From Performance to Impairment	p. 157
12 'Hungry to Be Noticed'	p. 173
13 Threatening Space	p. 191
14 Endnote: the Embodiment of Consciousness	p. 207
15 Conclusion	p. 218
Index	p. 239

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