Food and food poverty

This chapter begins by arguing that food has been de-socialised by economic liberalism and by the domination of food corporations within the food chain. It reviews the extent to which an individualistic politics locates the causes of food poverty in poor people themselves. The gluttony of developed countries has had obvious consequences for developing ones. Yet within affluent nations, too, the poorest have suffered. Economic liberalism has created both the corporatization of the food chain and a culture in which ill-health (especially when related to obesity) is blamed on consumption habits rather than on what happens before food reaches the shelves. The chapter outlines the Ecological Public Health approach developed by Tim Lang and others, and concludes by raising two issues – concerning democracy and paternalism – that will be central to the ecosocial politics of the twenty-first century.