Paper short abstract:

Populist Paleo promoters construct their dietary approach as oppositional to the state and biomedicine's neoliberal turn. Yet, alternative health is big business, and I suggest Paleo reproduces as much as resists neoliberal values and practices.

Paper long abstract:

In our age of affluence, excessive or damaged flesh is subject to stigma and disdain. Average body size and rates of chronic illness have increased in tandem with neoliberal policies engendering the prevalence of polluted environments, precarious work conditions, and the unregulated sale of junk foods. Yet, the individual is consistently cast as responsible for their health and weight. Internalising such values, the ill and body-conscious seek redemption from their fleshly challenges through dietary disciplines. With its nostalgic appeal to an idyllic past, and eschewal of the unfavourable fare of the present, the Paleo approach is constructed as oppositional to the state and biomedicine's neoliberal turn. However, weight loss is big business in Australia, and populist Paleo leaders have built alternative health empires on the back of anti-elite sentiments stemming from the perceived health crisis. Favouring the anecdotal over the evidence-based, the diet's promoters tap into consumer anxieties and frustrations through social media platforms that provide both a sense of community for Paleo dieters, and a source of knowledge, labour and revenue for their founders. Based on ethnographic research in Melbourne, Sydney and online, I argue that despite its oppositional self-styling, the Paleo diet's market orientation, and focus on individual health in lieu of social reform, ensures it reproduces more than resists neoliberal values and practices.