Obesity in Canada

Jenny Ellison is the Curator of Sport and Leisure at the Canadian Museum of History, and co-editor of Obesity in Canada: Critical Perspectives, also published by University of Toronto Press. Deborah McPhail is an assistant professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences in the Max Rady College of Medicine at the University of Manitoba Wendy Mitchinson is a Canadian historian and a Distinguished Professor Emerita in University of Waterloo.

• Introduction: Obesity in Canada by Jenny Ellison, Deborah McPhail and Wendy MitchinsonPart One: Critical Perspectives on Obesity Science 1. Hearing Noises and Noticing Silence: Towards a Critical Engagement with Canadian Body Weight Statistics by Michael Gard2. “Obesity” as Process: The Medicalization of Fatness by Canadian Researchers, 1971-2010 by Elise Paradis3. The Geneticization of Aboriginal Diabetes and Obesity: Adding Another Scene to the Story of the Thrifty Gene by Jennifer Poudrier4. Diabesity or the “Twin Epidemics”: Reflections on the Iatrogenic Consequences of Stigmatizing Lifestyle to Reduce the Incidence of Diabetes Mellitus in Canada by Darlene McNaughton and Cynthia Smith 5. Spoon Fed: Learning about “Obesity” in Dietetics by Julie E. Rochefort, Andrea Senchuk, Jennifer Brady and Jacqui Gingras6. Aboriginal People’s Clinical Encounters with Obesity: A Conversation with Barry Interview by Deborah McPhailPart Two: Who is Responsible for Obesity?7. Mother Blaming and Obesity: An Alternative Perspective by Wendy Mitchinson8. Obesity, Risk, and Responsibility: The Discursive Production of the “Ultimate At-Risk Child” by Pamela Ward9. Obesity Panic, Body Surveillance, and Pedagogy: Elementary Teachers’ Response to “Obesity Messaging” by LeAnne Petherick and Natalie Beausoleil10. Find Your Greatness: Responsibility, Policy and the Problem of Childhood Obesity by Charlene ElliottPart Three: Representations Of, and Responses To, Obesity11. From “FU” to “Be Yourself”: Fat Activisms in Canada by Jenny Ellison12. Having Your Jiggs Dinner and Eating It, Too: Newfoundland Obesity and the Affects of Tradition by Deborah McPhail13. Screening the Un-Scene: Deconstructing the (Bio)politics of Story Telling in a Canadian Reality Makeover Weight Loss Series by Moss E. Norman, GeneviÈve Rail and Shannon Jette14. Fat Authenticity and the Pursuit of Hetero-Romantic Love in Vancouver: The Case of Online Dating by Jacqueline Schoemaker HolmesPart Four: Inconclusions15. “Celebrating Unruly Experiences”: Queering Health at Every Size as a Response to the Politics of Postponement by Jennifer Brady and Jacqui Gingras16. Re-Visioning Fat: From Enforcing Norms to Exploring Possibilities Unique to Different Bodies by Carla Rice

"Obesity in Canada is a welcome, and much needed, addition to the study of the fat body as a cultural, social, political, historical, and representational artefact…[The editors] offer, as a whole, a powerful "interruption" into more usual ways of thinking about fat and obesity in Canada and elsewhere."- Ann Braithwaite (CBMH Vol 34:2: 2016)