"The Terror Within:" Neoliberalism and the Rhetoric of the Obesity Crisis

205 Pages·2015·0.84 MB·English

SSyyrraaccuussee UUnniivveerrssiittyy
SSUURRFFAACCEE
Dissertations - ALL SURFACE
January 2015
""TThhee TTeerrrroorr WWiitthhiinn::"" NNeeoolliibbeerraalliissmm aanndd tthhee RRhheettoorriicc ooff tthhee OObbeessiittyy
CCrriissiiss
Anna Hensley
Syracuse University
Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/etd
Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons
RReeccoommmmeennddeedd CCiittaattiioonn
Hensley, Anna, ""The Terror Within:" Neoliberalism and the Rhetoric of the Obesity Crisis" (2015).
Dissertations - ALL. 320.
https://surface.syr.edu/etd/320
This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the SURFACE at SURFACE. It has been accepted for
inclusion in Dissertations - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact
[email protected].
ABSTRACT

This dissertation focuses on specific discourses within the rhetoric of the “obesity crisis”
that position the fat body as a threat to U.S. military power and national identity. Since 9/11,
there has been a growing rhetoric that frames obesity as a threat to national security that is
weakening U.S. military forces and straining the U.S. economy through increased health care
costs and lower worker productivity. Drawing on research from rhetorical studies, transnational
feminism, and disability studies that highlight the way that discourses surrounding the body are
used to limit access to citizenship and rhetorical agency, this research analyzes the material and
discursive effects of nationalist rhetorics of obesity.
The project begins with an analysis of John F. Kennedy’s 1960 article “The Soft
American,” which worried that declining rates of fitness in the U.S. would lead to defeat in the
Cold War and ultimately led to the development of the Presidential Fitness Program. This
analysis of Kennedy works to contextualize the analysis of a variety of specific contemporary
sites where a nationalist rhetoric of obesity emerges, including the work of the lobbying
organization “Mission: Readiness,” the Centers for Disease Control-funded documentary series
Weight of the Nation, and the First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign. The
analysis of these sites shows that a nationalist rhetoric of obesity has developed as a response to
the contradictions of neoliberalism, deflecting attention from the failures of the neoliberal state
and encouraging citizen-consumers to buy their way to a thinner body. A nationalist rhetoric of
obesity further normalizes the body and creates thinness as a condition of citizenship, ultimately
reinforcing and deepening existing marginalizations based on race, gender, class, and ability.
Through its methodology, this dissertation project builds on rhetorical work in
transnational feminism like that being done by Rebecca Dingo, Jennifer Wingard, and Eileen
Schell. The project also draws on the work of rhetorical disability scholars like Jay Dolmage,
Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson, and Margaret Price as it highlights the way discourses surrounding
the body are used to limit access to citizenship and to rhetorical agency. In addition to blending
transnational feminist and disability theory as critical frameworks, this project works to bring
rhetorical studies into conversation with the relatively new field of fat studies—a field that
challenges the medicalization of fat and deconstructs the stigma surrounding fatness in order to
promote more just body politics.
“THE TERROR WITHIN:” NEOLIBERALISM AND THE RHETORIC OF THE OBESITY
CRISIS

by

Anna Hensley

B.A., University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, 2007
M.A., Miami University, 2009

Dissertation
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric.

Syracuse University
August 2015
Copyright © Anna Hensley 2015
All Rights Reserved
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have been very lucky to receive a wealth of support, feedback, and advice throughout
the process of developing this project—particularly from my dissertation advisor, Eileen Schell.
Eileen has been a constant source of thoughtful feedback and sound professional advice. She has
been patient with and supportive of my writing process, as well as enthusiastic and respectful of
my work. I cannot imagine developing this project without her guidance. I am also grateful for
the focused and thoughtful feedback Lois Agnew has provided me throughout the writing
process. Lois’s care in reading and responding to my work has helped me become a stronger and
more thoughtful writer through this process. I am also deeply grateful for Gwen Pough, Rebecca
Dingo, and Minnie Bruce Pratt, all of whom provided me with invaluable writing advice,
feedback, and resources throughout the development of this project. I feel privileged to have
worked with a committee of such dynamic scholars, teachers, and writers and am continually
inspired by their example.
During the writing of this dissertation, I worked as part of a collaborative teaching team
in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at Syracuse University. The teachers I
worked with in this role, both faculty and fellow graduate students, proved to be a key support
network throughout the writing process and were the source of many important conversations
that influenced the development of this project. I want to thank Dana Olwan, Himika
Bhattacharya, and Robin Riley for their invaluable mentorship, advice, and support. I would also
like to thank Ashley Taylor, Sherri Williams, Emily Mitchell-Eaton, and Tre Wentling for their
friendship, their camaraderie, and their help in managing the daily work of teaching when the
writing process was most stressful.
v
I am also indebted to the unflagging support of my friends. Nicole Gonzales Howell and
Kate Navickas have been present since the very beginning of this project and have provided
feedback that has shaped and improved its development from the start. I am grateful for their
care for my work, their collaboration, and their ongoing emotional support. I am also deeply
grateful for Abby Dubisar, my sister-mentor and most trusted source of advice. This process
would have been much more difficult were it not for Abby’s caring ear, her enthusiasm for my
research, and her practical counsel.
I also have to acknowledge my family, both the Hensleys and the Arnolds, for their
patience, support, and understanding throughout this process. I am especially thankful for my
dad, Mark Hensley, who has been my constant cheerleader, and my sisters, Grace and Sarah
Hensley, who are my greatest source of inspiration.
Finally, I do not have the words to properly express my gratitude to my partner, Aidan
Arnold. He has kept me grounded and mindful of my personal goals. He has lifted me up and
kept me laughing. His unconditional confidence in me has helped me find my confidence in
myself when I most needed it. I am blessed to have an equal partner in all things, and my life is
richer and more beautiful for his presence in it.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i
Title Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
Copyright Notice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Introduction
The Rhetoric of the War Against Obesity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter One
John F. Kennedy’s “The Soft American” and the Construction of Fit Citizenship . . . . . . . . 20
Chapter Two
Fighting Fat with “Mission: Readiness:” Branding the Fat Body As A Threat to
National Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Chapter Three
Neoliberal Literacies of the Body in The Weight of the Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Chapter Four
Race, Motherhood, and Rhetorical Constraint in Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move”
Campaign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Conclusion
Trading War for Justice: Toward a New Rhetoric of Food, Fat, and Health . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Vita . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
vii
1
INTRODUCTION

THE RHETORIC OF THE WAR AGAINST OBESITY

“[S]tudying any culture’s attitudes and arguments about the body always connects us intimately
with attitudes and arguments about rhetorical possibility. That is, to care about the body is to care
about how we make meaning.” -Jay Dolmage (“Octalog III: The Politics of Historiography in
2010,” 114)

“American culture is engaged in a pervasive witch hunt targeting fatness and fat people (a
project that is being rapidly exported worldwide). Although this urge to eradicate fat people
continues, it is not only challenging to be fat, but also especially challenging to question any
aspect of the witch hunt on fat people […]. Whenever members of a society have recourse to
only one opinion on a basic human experience, that is precisely the discourse and the experience
that should attract intellectual curiosity.” -Marilyn Wann (Forward to The Fat Studies Reader, x)

During a 2003 National Public Radio interview, then Surgeon General Richard Carmona
identified obesity as the greatest threat facing the US. At the time of the interview, less than two
years had elapsed since the September 11th terrorist attacks and the US had since invaded both
Afghanistan and Iraq under the justification of fighting continuing terrorist threats. Despite these
ongoing military campaigns, and despite persistent fear of further attacks on the US, Carmona
told NPR, “I’ve come to refer to [obesity] as the terror within because it’s every bit as
devastating as terrorism.” Like so much post-9/11 rhetoric, Carmona’s framing of fat as the
“terror within” clearly plays on and deepens public fears and anxieties over the specter of
terrorist threats. But it also implies that the bodies of citizens either are or have the potential to
become a grave threat to the strength and security of the nation.
In the years following Carmona’s NPR interview, the idea that obesity rates present a
serious danger to the US as a nation has gained speed. In 2010, for example, a group of retired
military personnel called “Mission: Readiness” began advocating for reforms to school lunch
programs—reforms they argued were necessary in order to curb childhood obesity rates so that
2
more of America’s youth would meet the physical requirement for military service. Earlier in the
same year, First Lady Michelle Obama launched the “Let’s Move” campaign, a campaign
dedicated to increasing education about exercise and nutrition while also advocating reforms to
national nutritional standards and public school lunch programs. While Obama’s campaign does
not voice “Mission: Readiness’s” explicit concern for the future of national defense, the “Let’s
Move” campaign has been referred to again and again in the news media as “Michelle Obama’s
War on Childhood Obesity.” News sources across the US now make reference to the “war on
obesity” on a daily basis, working to pull readers in by drawing on the militarized, panic-stricken
language of headlines like “Cash as Weapon in the War Against Obesity,”1 “New Tactic in War
on Obesity: Attack Portion Size,”2 and “No Twinkies Please, We’re Dying.”3
The “battle of the bulge” has been a common phrase thrown around dieting discourses for
a long time. But the current rhetoric of the “war on obesity” marks a shift from a focus on the
individual struggle to slim down to a desired weight to a national struggle to normalize and
discipline the citizen body as a way of strengthening the collective whole. In the rhetoric of the
“war on obesity,” nationalist and militarized language is not being employed as a purely
convenient metaphor—it’s being used to posit the size and health of the individual citizen body
as a threat to the national identity and global standing of the US. In this dissertation, I offer a
rhetorical analysis of a variety of sites where a militarized and nationalist rhetoric of the “obesity
crisis” emerges in order to better understand the diverse purposes it serves, the variety of cultural
and political values with which it is embedded, and the lived consequences of its circulation.
In her book Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism, Julie
Guthman argues that while “[i]t is incontrovertible that Americans on average have gotten bigger

1 David Maris. Forbes 7 May 2012. Web. 24 Nov. 2012.
2 Brian Vastag. The Washington Post 2 June 2012. Web. 24 Nov. 2012.
3 Mark Morford. SFGate 20 Nov. 2012. Web. 24 Nov. 2012.