Body Knowledge and Control: Studies in the Sociology of Physical Education and Health

Today’s society is obsessed 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 current 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 * Analysis of the influence of nurtured body image in racism, sexism, homophobia and body elitism in schools.