Paper short abstract:

Based on an ethnographic study of food socialization at an independent school in New York City, this paper examines how global discourses about agribusiness, obesity, and the nanny state fuel community anxiety over teaching children what, why, and how to eat.

Paper long abstract:

Responding to national trends and parental pressures, Ridgecrest, an independent elementary school in New York City, has recently introduced school food change initiatives to provide less processed lunches and teach the benefits of fresh foods. As food change researchers attest, handing down new culinary options and curricular add-ons about sustainable agriculture and healthy diets does not definitively transform how children eat and think about food. Instead, these cultural values and practices transform erratically as contradictory messages broadcast by media, parents, and teachers are digested through everyday interactions among the children themselves. However, the "food fights" that have erupted within this community are instructive not only for food activists interested in changing the way the next generation eats but also for social theorists interested in analyzing the ways in which presumably objective facts about a topic as fundamental and sensitive as food are rejected, ingested, and/or transformed by those to whom they are presented. In this case, debates about, on the one hand, the ills of agribusiness and obesity and, on the other, the nanny state's inroads on an individual's freedom of taste are having an impact not only on the presumed targets of the new food initiatives (the children) but also many of the anxious adults as well. Through analysis of food discourse derived from interviews, focus groups, and natural interactions in classrooms and dining hall, this paper examines how consumers measure and negotiate the ingredients and techniques for achieving a state of physical health and moral goodness.