The Moral Geographies of Children, Young People and Food: Beyond Jamie’s School Dinners

J. Pike & P. Kelly

ISBN 9781137312297

Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke – 2014

Jamie Oliver has been a central but always ambiguous figure in debates about young people and food in the UK, the US, Australia and New Zealand during the last 10 years. This book takes his campaign for better school meals, presented so powerfully in the TV series Jamie’s School Dinners, as a starting point for examining the moral geographies of parenting, young people’s nutrition, health and well-being, and public health ‘crises’ such as obesity in a post GFC era of austerity. The authors show how these debates are always about the moral project of the self, the types of people we are and should aspire to be, and the roles that food can play in that ongoing project. The book critiques the moral judgements so often evident in community, policy and academic debates about these concerns.

Jo Pike is Programme Manager for Childhood Studies at the University of Leeds, UK. Her research interests centre on children and young people’s health and wellbeing, space and spatiality.

Peter Kelly is Associate Professor at RMIT University, Australia. His books include Working in Jamie’s Kitchen: Passion, Salvation and Young Workers, The Self as Enterprise: Foucault and the ‘Spirit’ of 21st Century Capitalism, A Critical Youth Studies for the 21st Century, and Smashed! The Many Meanings of Intoxication and Drunkenness.

See more at: http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/the-moral-geographies-of-children-young-people-and-food-jo-pike/?K=9781137312297