Studies in the sociology of physical education and health

Is school good for your health?

Does the curriculum in physical education and health leave children feeling positive or deeply aleanated from their bodies and self?

Contemporary westernised societies are besotted with the ‘body’, its size, shape and ‘health’. Governments, business and the popular media, spend and earn fortunes encouraging populations to get healthy, eat properly, exercise daily and get thin.

But how are contemporary social trends and attitudes towards the ‘body’ reflected in the curriculum of schools, in the teaching of Physical Education and Health? How do teachers and health professionals influence young people’s experiences of their own and others’ bodies? Is health education liberating or merely another form of regulation and social control?

Drawing together some of the latest research on the body and schooling, Body Knowledge and Control offers a sharp and challenging critique of (post) modern day attitudes toward obesity, health, childhood and the mainstream science and business interests that promote narrow body centred ways of thinking. Includes:

• A critical history of notions of body, identity and health in schools.
• Analysis of the ‘obesity epidemic’, eating disorders and the influence of nurtured body image in racism, sexism, homophobia and body elitism in schools.
• John Evans is a Professor of Sociology of Education and Physical Education in the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, Loughborough University.
• Brian Davies is a professor of Education in the School of Social Sciences, University of Cardiff.
• Jan Wright is Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Education, Univeristy of Wollongong.