Obesity in Canada: Critical Perspectives

Introduction: Obesity in Canada by Jenny Ellison, Deborah McPhail and Wendy Mitchinson

Part One: Critical Perspectives on Obesity Science

1. Hearing Noises and Noticing Silence: Towards a Critical Engagement with Canadian Body Weight Statistics by Michael Gard

2. “Obesity” as Process: The Medicalization of Fatness by Canadian Researchers, 1971-2010 by Elise Paradis

3. The Geneticization of Aboriginal Diabetes and Obesity: Adding Another Scene to the Story of the Thrifty Gene by Jennifer Poudrier

4. Diabesity or the “Twin Epidemics”: Reflections on the Iatrogenic Consequences of Stigmatizing Lifestyle to Reduce the Incidence of Diabetes Mellitus in Canada by Darlene McNaughton and Cynthia Smith 

5. Spoon Fed: Learning about “Obesity” in Dietetics by Julie E. Rochefort, Andrea Senchuk, Jennifer Brady and Jacqui Gingras

6. Aboriginal People’s Clinical Encounters with Obesity: A Conversation with Barry Interview by Deborah McPhail

Part Two: Who is Responsible for Obesity?

7. Mother Blaming and Obesity: An Alternative Perspective by Wendy Mitchinson

8. Obesity, Risk, and Responsibility: The Discursive Production of the “Ultimate At-Risk Child” by Pamela Ward

9. Obesity Panic, Body Surveillance, and Pedagogy: Elementary Teachers’ Response to “Obesity Messaging” by LeAnne Petherick and Natalie Beausoleil

10. Find Your Greatness: Responsibility, Policy and the Problem of Childhood Obesity by Charlene Elliott

Part Three: Representations Of, and Responses To, Obesity

11. From “FU” to “Be Yourself”: Fat Activisms in Canada by Jenny Ellison

12. Having Your Jiggs Dinner and Eating It, Too: Newfoundland Obesity and the Affects of Tradition by Deborah McPhail

13. Screening the Un-Scene: Deconstructing the (Bio)politics of Story Telling in a Canadian Reality Makeover Weight Loss Series by Moss E. Norman, Geneviève Rail and Shannon Jette

14. Fat Authenticity and the Pursuit of Hetero-Romantic Love in Vancouver: The Case of Online Dating by Jacqueline Schoemaker Holmes

Part Four: Inconclusions

15. “Celebrating Unruly Experiences”: Queering Health at Every Size as a Response to the Politics of Postponement by Jennifer Brady and Jacqui Gingras

16. Re-Visioning Fat: From Enforcing Norms to Exploring Possibilities Unique to Different Bodies by Carla Rice