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University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 11-4-2015 Let’s Move! Biocitizens and the Fat Kids on the Block Mary Catherine Dickman University of South Florida, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the Women's Studies Commons Scholar Commons Citation Dickman, Mary Catherine, "Let’s Move! Biocitizens and the Fat Kids on the Block" (2015). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/5937 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Let’s Move! Biocitizens and the Fat Kids on the Block by Mary C. Dickman A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Women’s and Gender Studies College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Major Professor: Kim Golombisky, Ph.D. David A. Rubin, Ph.D. Diane Price-Herndl, Ph.D. Date of Approval: November 2, 2015 Keywords: critical fat studies, discourse analysis, childhood obesity, biopower Copyright © 2015, Mary C. Dickman TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii Chapter One: Introduction ...............................................................................................................1 Discourse..............................................................................................................................2 Chapter Two: Background ...............................................................................................................5 Public Health ........................................................................................................................5 Let’s Move! Campaign ........................................................................................................6 Chapter Three: Literature Review ...................................................................................................8 Critical Fat Studies ...............................................................................................................9 Obesity and BMI ................................................................................................................10 Issues with the Body Mass Index (BMI) ...........................................................................11 The Normalization of Weight through BMI ......................................................................13 Obesity as disease ..................................................................................................15 Obesity as epidemic ...............................................................................................16 Obesity as intersectional ........................................................................................17 Critical Discourse Analysis of Public Health Campaigns .................................................18 Studies of Let’s Move! ......................................................................................................20 Chapter Four: Theoretical Framework...........................................................................................23 Biopower ............................................................................................................................23 Biopedagogies ....................................................................................................................25 Biocitizen ...........................................................................................................................27 Neoliberal Subjects ............................................................................................................28 Chapter Five: Method ....................................................................................................................30 Site of analysis ...................................................................................................................30 Discourse Analysis.............................................................................................................31 Critical Discourse Analysis................................................................................................32 Chapter Six: Analysis ....................................................................................................................33 Moral Panic ........................................................................................................................34 Neoliberal Discourse of Health and Personal Responsibility ............................................40 Neoliberal Discourse of Motherhood .................................................................................44 Neoliberal Discourse of Consumption ...............................................................................48 Promotion of Middle Class Modes of Consumption .........................................................50 Biopedagogies for eating healthy ..........................................................................51 Biopedagogies for physical activity ......................................................................55 i Implied whiteness of middle-class values ..............................................................57 Chapter Seven: Conclusion ............................................................................................................65 References ......................................................................................................................................68 Appendices .....................................................................................................................................83 Appendix A: First Lady Causes or Charities .....................................................................83 Appendix B: Let’s Move! Learn the Facts ........................................................................86 Appendix C: Let’s Move! Eat Healthy ..............................................................................87 Appendix D: Let’s Move! Get Active ...............................................................................88 Appendix E: Let’s Move! Take Action ............................................................................89 Appendix F: Let’s Move! Join Us .....................................................................................90 ii ABSTRACT This project analyzed First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign for how it constructs obesity and health. Let’s Move! is a national internet-based campaign to end childhood obesity. The literature on Let’s Move! is limited and focuses on the privatization and corporatization of children’s physical education in public schools. Taking an intersectional approach to critical fat studies, I use critical discourse analysis to investigate how the language used in the Let’s Move! campaign (re)enforces and (re)signifies cultural notions of fat as a social problem – specifically that fat bodies are diseased, unproductive, and a financial burden. I maintain that the Let’s Move! campaign is a symptomatic text that reveals a moral panic over the so-called childhood obesity epidemic by insisting that childhood obesity is a threat to national economy and security. I contend that Let’s Move! constructs good citizens as informed consumers, and the biopedagogies recommended by Let’s Move! promote White middle-class norms as the proper way to live while ignoring structural inequalities. Furthermore, I posit the campaign employs neoliberal discourses to frame mothers as responsible for their obese children’s weight and encourages women to conform to the cultural notion of the “good mother.” Overall, I argue the Let’s Move! campaign produces classed, raced, gendered, and able-bodied ideals of citizenship that function to further marginalize poor and minority groups. iii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Over that last three decades, the American media and medical establishments have reported rising rates of obesity in the United States population. Obesity is presented as a serious public health problem that needs urgent attention. The American Medical Association (AMA) reports that rates of obesity in adults have increased from 13% to 34% between 1980 and 2008 (“Related Conditions,” n.d). This amounts to over one-third of the population or 78.6 million U.S. adults who are obese (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2014). The CDC (2014) estimates the medical costs associated with obesity in the United States to be $147 billion annually. News coverage becomes alarmist when it focuses on childhood obesity as the CDC reports rates for childhood obesity having risen from 7% in 1980 to 18% in 2012 and rates for adolescents from 5% to nearly 21% for the same period (“Childhood Obesity Facts,” 2014). The CDC estimates that one-third of children and adolescents in the United States are overweight or obese (“Childhood Obesity Facts”, 2014). These rising rates of obesity have led some in the medical community to conclude there is an obesity epidemic (Troiano & Flegal, 1999; Wang & Beydoun, 2007) and might explain why First Lady Michelle Obama chose reducing rates of childhood obesity as her specific cause
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