A critical perspective on one of the major public health issues of the day Discusses both conceptual and practical issues Synthesizes a range of disciplinary perspectives Includes findings from primary research International author team

Transforming Sport and Physical Cultures through Feminist Knowledges contributes new perspectives on the entanglement of digital and physical cultures, more-than-human relations, post and decolonial ways of knowing, and how onto-epistemologies of sport come to matter. These perspectives are explored through a diverse array of topics, including, the embodiment of netball through Feminist Physical Cultural Studies; pregnant embodiment and implications of the postgenomic turn; posthumanist perspectives on women’s negotiation of affective body work and an autoethnographic account of how masculinity materialises through football; the mediation of gendered subjectivity through the digital-physical cultures of cycling; as well as how decolonial and postcolonial approaches identify the gendered and racialised relations of power in sport for development and football campaigns aimed at women’s empowerment. The thread that connects these chapters is the ‘doing’ of feminism as a generative knowledge practice that can transform ways of imagining, knowing, and affecting more equitable futures. This feminist collection contributes to the movement of ideas and transformation of knowledge within and across sport and physical cultures. Authors explore the power relations implicated in the gendered formation of physical cultures (across leisure, sport, the arts, tourism, well-being, and various embodied practices) from a range of disciplinary perspectives and theory-method approaches. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Leisure Sciences.

Eating less, exercising more and losing weight seem the obvious solution for the oncoming 'obesity epidemic'. Rarely, however, is thought given to how these messages are interpreted and whether they are in fact inherently healthy. Education, Disordered Eating and Obesity Discourse investigates how 'body centred talk' about weight, fat, food and exercise is recycled in schools, enters educational processes, and impacts on the identities and health of young people. Drawing on the experiences of young women who have developed eating disorders and research on international school curricula and the media, the authors challenge the veracity, substance and merits of contemporary 'obesity discourse'. By concentrating on previously unexplored aspects of the debate around weight and health, it is revealed how well-meaning advice can propel some children toward behaviour that seriously damages their health. This book is not only about 'eating disorders' and the people affected, but the effects of obesity discourse on everyone's health as it enters public policy, educational practice and the cultural fabric of our lives. It will interest students, teachers, doctors, health professionals and researchers concerned with obesity and weight issues.

Digital worlds and cultures-social media, web 2.0, youtube, wearable technologies, health and fitness apps-dominate, if not order, our everyday lives. We are no longer 'just' consumers or readers of digital culture but active producers through facebook, twitter, Instagram, youtube and other emerging technologies. This book is predicated on the assumption that out understanding of our everyday lives should be informed by what is taking place in and through emerging technologies given these (virtual) environments provide a crucial context where traditional, categorical assumptions about the body, identity and leisure may be contested. Far from being 'virtual', the body is constituted within and through emerging technologies in material ways. Recent 'moral panics' over the role of digital cultures in teen suicide, digital drinking games, an endless array of homoerotic images of young bodies being linked with steroid use, disordered eating and body dissatisfaction, facebook games/fundraising campaigns (e.g. for breast cancer), movements devoted to exposing 'everyday sexism' / metoo, twitter abuse (of feminists, of athletes, of racist nature to name but a few), speak to the need for critical engagement with digital cultures. While some of the earlier techno-utopian visions offered the promise of digitality to give rise to participatory, user generator collaborations, within this book we provide critical engagement with digital technologies and what this means for our understandings of leisure cultures. The chapters originally published in a special issue in Leisure Studies.

A critical perspective on one of the major public health issues of the day Discusses both conceptual and practical issues Synthesizes a range of disciplinary perspectives Includes findings from primary research International author team

Transforming Sport and Physical Cultures through Feminist Knowledges contributes new perspectives on the entanglement of digital and physical cultures, more-than-human relations, post and decolonial ways of knowing, and how onto-epistemologies of sport come to matter. These perspectives are explored through a diverse array of topics, including, the embodiment of netball through Feminist Physical Cultural Studies; pregnant embodiment and implications of the postgenomic turn; posthumanist perspectives on women's negotiation of affective body work and an autoethnographic account of how masculinity materialises through football; the mediation of gendered subjectivity through the digital-physical cultures of cycling; as well as how decolonial and postcolonial approaches identify the gendered and racialised relations of power in sport for development and football campaigns aimed at women's empowerment. The thread that connects these chapters is the 'doing' of feminism as a generative knowledge practice that can transform ways of imagining, knowing, and affecting more equitable futures. This feminist collection contributes to the movement of ideas and transformation of knowledge within and across sport and physical cultures. Authors explore the power relations implicated in the gendered formation of physical cultures (across leisure, sport, the arts, tourism, well-being, and various embodied practices) from a range of disciplinary perspectives and theory-method approaches. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Leisure Sciences.

Eating less, exercising more and losing weight seem the obvious solution for the oncoming 'obesity epidemic'. Rarely, however, is thought given to how these messages are interpreted and whether they are in fact inherently healthy. Education, Disordered Eating and Obesity Discourse investigates how 'body centred talk' about weight, fat, food and exercise is recycled in schools, enters educational processes, and impacts on the identities and health of young people. Drawing on the experiences of young women who have developed eating disorders and research on international school curricula and the media, the authors challenge the veracity, substance and merits of contemporary 'obesity discourse'. By concentrating on previously unexplored aspects of the debate around weight and health, it is revealed how well-meaning advice can propel some children toward behaviour that seriously damages their health. This book is not only about 'eating disorders' and the people affected, but the effects of obesity discourse on everyone's health as it enters public policy, educational practice and the cultural fabric of our lives. It will interest students, teachers, doctors, health professionals and researchers concerned with obesity and weight issues.

The entire infrastructure and culture of medicine is being transformed by digital technology, the Internet and mobile devices. Cyberspace is now regularly used to provide medical advice and medication, with great numbers of sufferers immersing themselves within virtual communities. What are the implications of this medicalization of cyberspace for how people make sense of health and identity? The Medicalization of Cyberspace is the first book to explore the relationship between digital culture and medical sociology. It examines how technology is redefining expectations of and relationships with medical culture, addressing the following questions: How will the rise of digital communities affect traditional notions of medical expertise? What will the medicalization of cyberspace mean in a new era of posthuman enhancements? How should we regard hype and exaggeration about science in the media and how can this encourage public engagement with bioethics? This book looks at the complex interactions between health, medicalization, cyberculture, the body and identity. It addresses topical issues, such as medical governance, reproductive rights, eating disorders, Web 2.0, and perspectives on posthumanism. It is essential reading for healthcare professionals and social, philosophical and cultural theorists of health.

The entire infrastructure and culture of medicine is being transformed by digital technology, the Internet and mobile devices. Cyberspace is now regularly used to provide medical advice and medication, with great numbers of sufferers immersing themselves within virtual communities. What are the implications of this medicalization of cyberspace for how people make sense of health and identity? The Medicalization of Cyberspace is the first book to explore the relationship between digital culture and medical sociology. It examines how technology is redefining expectations of and relationships with medical culture, addressing the following questions: How will the rise of digital communities affect traditional notions of medical expertise? What will the medicalization of cyberspace mean in a new era of posthuman enhancements? How should we regard hype and exaggeration about science in the media and how can this encourage public engagement with bioethics? This book looks at the complex interactions between health, medicalization, cyberculture, the body and identity. It addresses topical issues, such as medical governance, reproductive rights, eating disorders, Web 2.0, and perspectives on posthumanism. It is essential reading for healthcare professionals and social, philosophical and cultural theorists of health.

Digital worlds and cultures-social media, web 2.0, youtube, wearable technologies, health and fitness apps-dominate, if not order, our everyday lives. We are no longer 'just' consumers or readers of digital culture but active producers through facebook, twitter, Instagram, youtube and other emerging technologies. This book is predicated on the assumption that out understanding of our everyday lives should be informed by what is taking place in and through emerging technologies given these (virtual) environments provide a crucial context where traditional, categorical assumptions about the body, identity and leisure may be contested. Far from being 'virtual', the body is constituted within and through emerging technologies in material ways. Recent 'moral panics' over the role of digital cultures in teen suicide, digital drinking games, an endless array of homoerotic images of young bodies being linked with steroid use, disordered eating and body dissatisfaction, facebook games/fundraising campaigns (e.g. for breast cancer), movements devoted to exposing 'everyday sexism' / metoo, twitter abuse (of feminists, of athletes, of racist nature to name but a few), speak to the need for critical engagement with digital cultures. While some of the earlier techno-utopian visions offered the promise of digitality to give rise to participatory, user generator collaborations, within this book we provide critical engagement with digital technologies and what this means for our understandings of leisure cultures. The chapters originally published in a special issue in Leisure Studies.