The availability, range, cost and quality of food in Western societies
have never been more favourable, yet food is also the focus of a great
deal of anxiety. There are concerns that our current diets will mean we
will get steadily fatter and more unhealthy while consuming 'junk food',
with consequences for our quality of life, our children's behaviour and
even the environment. This book challenges these ideas and places the
food debate in a wider context. As the political imagination and the
scope of social policy have narrowed, the focus on the personal and
corporeal has filled this gap, creating an inward, individualised
perspective that breeds a personal sense of vulnerability and distracts
from issues of broader social importance. The book also examines the
current use of 'food as metaphor' - the way that 'bad food' and obesity,
for example, have become code words for an elite disdain for the masses,
implicitly promoting the idea that the consequences of poverty are the
fault of the poor, and that a solution to the problems of social
inequality lies in the consumption of five fruit and veg a day. The
author also discusses how health fears around food are used as a lever
for greater official control of our everyday lives, from lunchbox
inspections and school food crusades, to endless media health advice and
scientifically-dubious 'healthy labelling' initiatives. The upshot of
these connected trends is misplaced anxiety and wasted effort fixing
what, for the most part, does not need to be fixed. Our modern food
system allows us to be healthier than ever before, while transforming
food from fuel into a source of entertainment, pleasure and choice. Rob
Lyons is Deputy Editor of Spiked Online.
