Responsible Girlhood and 'Healthy' Anxieties in Britain: Girls' Bodily Learning in School Sport

This chapter situates public health concerns around childhood obesity within a broader trend towards 'healthification.' I draw on scholarly research on the body and schooling as well as on longitudinal research into girls' sports involvement in the UK in order to make sense of how young girls construct themselves as 'healthy subjects' and perform 'successful girlhood'. I understand 'risk' as a regulatory discourse which constructs specific versions of girlhood as acceptable, desirable, and importantly responsible in ongoing efforts to avoid certain dangers, such as obesity. I consider the ways in which obesity as a 'discourse of anxiety' came to regulate girls' activities and available identities in school and in relation to dieting regimes and advertising campaigns.