Schools, Corporations, and the War on Childhood Obesity

Challenging the idea that the corporate ‘war’ against childhood obesity is normal, necessary, or harmless, this book exposes healthy lifestyles education as a form of mis-education that shapes how students learn about health, corporations, and consumption. Drawing on ethnographic research and studies from across the globe, this book explores how corporations fund, devise, and implement various programmes in schools as ‘part of the solution’ to childhood obesity.

Including perspectives from children, teachers, school leaders, and both public and private external providers on how children’s health and ‘healthy consumption’ is understood and experienced, this book is divided into eight accessible chapters which include:



Schooling the childhood obesity ‘crisis’;

The corporate ‘gift’ of healthy lifestyles;

‘Coming together’ to solve obesity;

Learning about health, fatness, and ‘good’ choices; and

Shaping the (un)healthy child-consumerSchools, Corporations, and the War on Childhood Obesity is the perfect resource for postgraduate students and academics working in the public health or education field, or those taking courses on the sociology of education, health and physical education, curriculum, pedagogy, ethnography, or critical theory, who are looking to gain an insight into the current situation surrounding obesity and health in corporations and schools.