The Covid-19 Pandemic, Gendered Labour, and Crisis: Lived Experiences of the Collapse of the Political Economy of Social Reproduction

在过去的十年里，肥胖在英国飙升至“流行病”的水平。最新的英国政府统计数据估计，超过四分之一的成年人和五分之一的儿童肥胖或超重（Baker, 2018）。作为英国社会最严重、最昂贵、最普遍的公共卫生问题，肥胖是糖尿病、心脏病和骨关节炎等疾病的风险因素，并有望超过吸烟，成为最普遍的癌症原因（cancer Research UK, 2018）。历史上，肥胖一直是富裕社会的一种疾病。然而，过去二十年肥胖率的上升尤其与不平等的加剧有关，高肥胖率在空间上集中在贫困人群中。贫困儿童肥胖的可能性是富裕同龄人的两倍，而生活在英格兰最贫困地区的成年人肥胖的可能性比生活在最贫困地区的成年人高46% （Baker, 2018: 9）。考虑到这种结构和空间的相关性，为什么媒体和公共卫生运动将肥胖描述为个人生活方式选择的结果，而不是社会经济因素，如购买健康食品的资金和获取途径？特别是，为什么肥胖被描绘成一种个体化的社会病态、一种耻辱，而不是不平等的社会问题？

Obesity has soared to 'epidemic' levels in Britain over the last decade. The latest UK Governmentstatistics estimate that over a quarter of adults and one fifth of children are either obese or overweight(Baker, 2018). As the most serious, costly and widespread public health issue in British Society, obesityis a risk-factor for diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and osteoarthritis and is on track to overtakesmoking as the most prevalent cause of cancer (Cancer Research UK, 2018). Historically, obesity hasbeen a disease of affluent societies. However, rising obesity rates over the last two decades correlatespecifically with growing inequality, with high rates of obesity spatially clustered amongst deprivedpopulations. Impoverished children are twice as likely to be obese than their wealthier peers, and adultsliving in the most deprived areas of England are 46% more likely to be obese than adults living in theleast deprived areas (Baker, 2018: 9). Given this structural and spatial correlation, why is obesityrepresented by the media and public health campaigns as a consequence of individual lifestyle choicesrather than socio-economic factors such as money for and access to healthy food? Particularly, why isobesity represented as an individualised social pathology, a stigma, rather than a social problem ofinequality?