The Biopedagogies of Sugar: Self-knowledge, Intervention and the Fantasy of Liberation

In the second decade of the 21st century, sugar supplanted dietary fat as the dietary enemy du jour. In the midst of this anti-sugar panic, sugar figures as a hidden threat, lurking unseen in everyday foods and acting on the body in ways that are simultaneously hyper-visible and hidden from view. In turn, this has led to a proliferation of self-help resources that encourage individuals not only to seek out and eliminate the hidden sugar in their diets, but also to rigorously scrutinise their own bodies and dietary impulses for signs of excess consumption, ‘addiction’ and the hidden harms of sugar. Under the instruction of self-designated experts, individuals are exhorted to seek self-knowledge in relation to both their consumption and their bodily and emotional ‘symptoms’. They are then instructed to enact interventions with the goal of liberating themselves permanently from sugar’s grip and restoring the body to an imagined ‘before’ of bodily purity.

Drawing on self-help literature and newspaper “hidden sugar shock” stories, this seminar from Professor Karen Throsby will argue that - within the self-help domain - the act of giving up sugar is never simply a benign health intervention. Rather, it is also a normative act of self-making without end that not only renders social inequalities invisible, but also actively exacerbates them.

This seminar is hosted by The Institute for Medical Humanities at Durham University and is delivered as part of the 2023-24 IMH Hidden Experience Seminar Series, which centres on hidden experiences of health and illness. 

@DurhamImh