ABSTRACT
Fitzpatrick’s observations concerning the blurring of the boundaries between welfare and control are the focus of this chapter, as we examine such a process in relation to anti childhood obesity policy in schools in the UK. In schools across western societies, curricular and pedagogies are being drastically re-shaped by initiatives and policies concerned with tackling a childhood ‘obesity epidemic’ (Evans, Rich, Davies and Allwood 2008; Burrows 2007). In England and Wales, central Government has sought joint action from its agencies, the Department of Health (DoH) and the Department for Education and Skills (DfES; renamed the Department for Children, Schools and Families in 2007), to address health matters through policy affecting the whole environment of schools. Many of these initiatives are being implemented as part of a Public Services Agreement Target: to halt, by 2010, ‘the year-on-year increase in obesity among children under 11’ in the context of a broader strategy to tackle obesity in the population as a whole (DoH 2004). In an effort to monitor and regulate childhood obesity, young people are now being subjected to an increasing range of techniques of surveillance, which involve not only monitoring their lifestyles in and outside schools (e.g., their food choices, physical activity levels) but more directly the collection of information on their individual bodies with a view to monitoring and altering their weight and size.
