I also had a great conversation about food insecurity and challenging poverty with the brilliant Emma Hopkins from campaign group and collective Mothers Manifesto. If you're planning on attending the Labour conference this weekend in Liverpool, then please go and say hi to Emma, the MM and Parents for Future UK who are calling for urgent action on climate justice and food security. And in our discussion threads this month we've covered everything from comfort food to table manners to bean exceptionalism - catch up below if you've missed out!
Over the summer I recorded an episode of Unchecked pod that dropped at the end of last month. I really enjoyed this conversation; Rachel and Dan asked super thoughtful questions and it prompted an insightful discussion. We talk about the research to disinformation pipeline; the wellness influencer ecosystem; foodwork; and social determinants of health. I think you’ll enjoy this; let me know your thoughts in the comments/Snackcord. It makes me miss the pod so much!
Ok, Dr Ben Carson doesn’t actually think hot dogs grow fresh from the ground. Apparently Trump’s nutrition advisor was joking - ‘cause an actual pup trotted past him as he was making his case: that kids would stop craving junk food if they could just taste a tomato straight off the vine. Sure, teach kids about growing fresh food and about farming and crops; get them to try food ‘straight from the soil’ if they’re keen, but, as usual, they’re missing the point here - feed hungry kids. Carson’s comment comes during an event to promote the US Department of Agriculture’s new ‘Harvest to Hallways’ initiative, which includes a $50 million investment in school cafeteria equipment and up to $25 million in grants to provide locally grown produce. Sounds good, right - but considering the administration has cancelled the 2021 Local Food for Schools Program (which had significantly greater funding), plus their major cuts to SNAP, and actually federal spending on food security is on a major decline. This article points to the recent criticism of Kennedy and Secretary Brooke Rollins for their ignorance concerning the real cost of food for Americans. Kennedy stated on his cooking show (I mean!!) that the meal he was making would cost Americans under $5 per serving - whereas the true cost to make the meal from scratch was hovering around $74. Rollins has recently suggested Americans could try a ‘budget meal’ of ‘a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, corn tortilla and one other thing’. Chasten Glezman Buttigieg (husband of former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg) said it well: ‘Private jets and tax breaks for them and their rich friends, and one piece of broccoli *AND* a tortilla for you!’
All of the content warnings for this piece because it’s deeply fatphobic and extremely triggering for people with an ED. But tl;dr toxic body ideals have only intensified in sororities thanks to GLP-1s. I’ve never understood ‘Greek’ culture (it was big at the universities I did my PhD and post-doc at). From the outside it has always seemed like a deranged popularity contest to buy your way to a bunch of friends who only like you because you’re hot and your parents are from old money? Seems like a weird basis for friendship, like NCT but for rich people. While I appreciate some sororities and frats are focussed on academics and community service, the rest seem like a really fucked up way of hoarding social capital and maintaining hierarchies with conventionally attractive thin, rich, white young men and women at the top. It was truly wild to read the lengths young women go to in order to be ‘skinny’ but feels entirely in-keeping with the vibe of body-fascism we have right now. The piece profiles young women who are going through an intense interviewing process for the best houses; absolutely everything is scrutinised; nails, hair, fits, socials, family name, who you know, GPA, sure. But most of all: body. Sorority girls are expected to maintain a flawless figure but only through diet and exercise; using medication is frowned upon, even though apparently most people are doing it. That creates an environment of secrecy, deception, competitive thinness, and extremely fucked up relationships with food and body. Oh, and it’s all co-signed by their parents. Cool.
This BBC in-depth report discusses a supposedly previously overlooked link between children with the highest BMIs; poor school attendance. According to the report, virtually all children attending specialist Complications from Excess Weight (CEW) clinics are absent from school. Doctors point to an increase in pandemic-era ‘ob*sity’ rates as evidence that children being out of school is driving the ‘ob*sity epidemic’. Post-pandemic absence rates have increased, and doctors believe that children who stay home, wait for it, eat more and move less, even though many of these children who attend these clinics have mental health problems and learning disabilities. We’ve talked with Miriam Collett about how the pandemic-era NCMP figures are notoriously unreliable, but even if they were, the way the BBC is reporting them is unnecessarily inflammatory. Journalist Alice Aylett Roberts writes ‘while childhood ob*sity had been rising steadily long before the pandemic, the rates exploded during the lockdowns’. But, dear reader, childhood ‘ob*sity’ rates were quite steady pre-pandemic and a 5-6% increase, while notable, could hardly be considered ‘explosive’. The solution, doctors say, is to get more children back into school, with personalised diet plans delivered by the CEW and even with the aid of GLP-1s. They also profile a young person who had attended a CEW service who experienced bullying so bad that they ended up with PTSD. Yet the article and the doctors interviewed seem unable to make the connection between anti-fatness and bullying, something research has found increases the risk of suicidal ideation in young people. To me this all makes the case for anti-bullying policies that include weight-based teasing not GLP1-s for kids, which as we'll see, has its own set of issues.
