Currently a great deal of public discourse around health is on the assumed relationship between childhood inactivity, young people's diets, and a putative steep rise in obesity. This edited collection examines these issues from a sociological and pedagogical perspective.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.

1. Policy, schools and the new health imperatives Valerie Harwood and Jan Wright 2. Embodying policy concepts John Evans and Brian Davies 3. Beyond school boundaries: new health imperatives, families and schools Emma Rich 4. 'Emboldened bodies': social class, school health policy and obesity discourse Laura De Pian 5. Health imperatives in primary schools across three countries: intersections of class, culture and subjectivity Jan Wright, Lisette Burrows and Emma Rich 6. Neither good nor useful: looking ad vivum in children's assessments of fat and healthy bodies Valerie Harwood 7. The medicalisation of food pedagogies in primary schools and popular culture: a case for awakening subjugated knowledges Rosie Welch, Samantha McMahon and Jan Wright 8. Teachers' talk about health, self and the student 'body' Lisette Burrows and Jaleh McCormack

Jan Wright is a Professorial Fellow in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Wollongong, Australia, and a member of the Early Start Research Institute. Her research draws on feminist and poststructuralist theory to critically engage issues associated with the relationship between embodiment, culture and health. Her most recent work has focused on the recontextualisation of health imperatives in various pedagogical sites, including school and the media, and on the consequences of these imperatives for the subjectivities of children, young people, teachers and parents. She is co-editor of Biopolitics and the 'obesity epidemic': governing bodies (Routledge 2009) with Valerie Harwood, Young people, physical activity and the everyday (Routledge 2010) and co-author with Michael Gard of The 'obesity epidemic': science, ideology and morality (Routledge 2005).

Valerie Harwood is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Wollongong, Australia, and a Future Fellow with the Australian Research Council. Her research interests include the production of knowledge on child and youth psychopathology, critical disability studies, youth exclusion and practices of medicalization in schools. This work is engaged in the critical analysis of issues that impact on inclusion in education. Research projects include work with Indigenous young people and education, and the investigation of socio-economic status and place in educational disadvantages. Her most recent book, co-authored with Professor Julie Allan, is Psychopathology at School: Theorizing Mental Disorders in Education (Routledge).