Governing Bodies: American Politics and the Shaping of the Modern Physique
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. 224 pages.
1.
When Michelle Obama launched the “Let’s Move” campaign in 2010, it triggered a backlash by conservatives anxious about the so called “nanny state” interfering unduly in the private sphere. The campaign was a national initiative “dedicated …
Sour Milk
At the World Health Assembly (WHA) meetings in late May, 2018, the US delegation tried to water-down or dump a very mild resolution to confirm and update earlier WHA resolutions that protect, promote, and support breastfeeding. No new controversial language had been added to the older resolutions. Ecuador was ready to introduce the resolution until the US threatened …
This article is part of the following series: The First Thousand Days of Life
(On behalf of the First Thousand Days Research Group (University of Cape Town))
…“Good nutrition in the first 1000 days between a woman’s pregnancy and her child’s second birthday sets the foundation for all the days that follow.”
“The First 1,000 Days of being a parent are now accepted to be the most significant in a child’s development.”
Guatemala, 2013.
Someone had drawn two footprints on green construction paper and taped it to the back of a box of cornflakes to show patients how to stand. In one corner the person had written out the word Nutrición; in another, perhaps because the impending task was at once ridiculous and frightening, the person had placed a sticker of the …
Discussing a failed arctic expedition of the late 1700s, Keith Gessen reminds us that the team had wooden boats, wildly inaccurate maps, and “didn’t know what a vitamin was.”[i] Now, four Nobel Prizes later, we are in the 101st Year of the Vitamin. The word, derived from “vital” because vitamins are required for life, yields 104,000,000 Google search …
This post was contributed by Emily Yates-Doerr (University of Amsterdam)
I thank Somatosphere for inviting me to submit to their blog. I am in the process of completing my book manuscript: The Weight of the Body: Changing Ideals of Fatness, Nourishment and Health in Guatemala. My entry for this blog does not come directly from material included in the book, …
Science, Medicine, and Anthropology