This book examines the public controversies surrounding lifestyle risks in the consumer society. Comparing news coverage of the 'globesity' pandemic in Britain and the USA, it illustrates the way moral panic brought children's food marketing to the centre of the policy debates about consumer lifestyles.

'Stephen Kline's study of the politics of risk discourse and the globesity 'epidemic' takes us beyond the tired reliance on moral panics and sanctimonious finger waving by demonstrating how a thoughtful, deft analysis of social problems can open up possibilities of new approaches and ways of seeing children's consumer empowerment.' - Daniel Thomas Cook, Department of Childhood Studies, Rutgers University, USA

'[This] book provides a richly detailed historical perspective, which sets the present debates about food marketing in context through a meticulous and wide-ranging scholarship. In Kline's hands the "Globesity epidemic" becomes a window onto a much larger scene where parents and children need to navigate a sensible take on a vast array of personal and risky choices, while being surrounded on all sides by the competing pressures of commercial interests and government policy responses.'- William Leiss, University of Ottawa, Canada

'Steve Kline has an aptitude for provoking us to look at children's consumerism in a different way as he unpacks the complex interplay between food marketing, family lifestyle and the neoliberal marketplace. Based on sound theory and original empirical work this book offers a fresh perspective on the medicalised discourses on 'globesity' forcing us to rethink our moral panic about children's time spent in front of the TV screen.' - David Marshall, Professor of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour, University of Edinburgh Business School, UK

Autorentext

STEPHEN KLINE is Professor of Communication at Simon Fraser University, Canada and Director of the Media Analysis Laboratory. He has written or co-authored articles and books including Social Communication in Advertising, Out of the Garden, Digital Play, and Researching Audiences. His teaching and research ranges widely through the fields of media analysis and audience research including media education, advertising and consumerism, children's consumerism, toy and video game play, and most recently the role that science journalism plays in the moral panics about children's advertising and sedentary lifestyles.

Inhalt
Preface Introduction: Growing up in the risk society Part I Framing the Body Politic: Advocacy Science and Setting the Risk Agenda Putting the Pan in the Pandemic Part II The TV Diet: Advertising as a Biased System of Risk Communication Since Hastings Risks of Exposure: The Influence of Food Advertising on Children's Consumption The Disruptive Screen: Understanding the Multiple Lifestyle Risks Associated with Heavy TV Viewing Part III Obesogenic Lifestyles in the Media Saturated Household Panicked Parenting: Managing Children's Lifestyle Choices in the Risk Society Consumer Empowerment in the Media Saturated Family Conclusion