Suchergebnisse

Hunger has never been a stable term. How people have understood and defined it, changed over time, along with a changing understanding of the body, its functions, physiological mechanisms and its needs. The paper follows these changes in a long-term multiperspective approach for the last two centuries. It argues, that hunger first was understood as a dangerous feeling, that eventually developed political power. To define hunger by physiology can thus be meant and understood as a means to articulate bodily needs and to point to the necessity of their satisfaction. Nonetheless, these definitions of hunger are not neutral or objective, moreover they may not be used for certain groups of people or under certain economic or social conditions, they may even be counterproductive, as they reduce empathy with the hungry.

Suzanne Junod's essay "Proscribing Deception": The Gould Net Weight Amendment and the Origins of Mandatory Nutrition Labeling" is the winner of the 2017 Charles Thomson Prize of the Society for the History of the Federal Government. In the second half of the nineteenth century, ways of thinking about food changed as chemists and physiologists identified nutrients and bodily needs and as urbanization, industrialization, and colonial encounters challenged traditional dietary customs and assumptions. Emerging as a reaction to concerns about industrial and military power, social welfare, and public health, the science of nutrition sought to define the norms and needs of variable human bodies, setting standards for bodies and foods that would enable physicians and politicians to develop nutritional recommendations and food policies for individuals and populations. Setting Nutritional Standards brings together authors from a variety of disciplines to explore perspectives on the theory, practices, and policies of modern nutrition science from the 1860s to the 1960s. The essays place the new science of nutrition within the changing social landscapes of Western Europe and the United States at the intersection of medicine, policy, social reform agendas, and public health initiatives. CONTRIBUTORS: Nick Cullather, Suzanne Junod, Deborah Neill, Elizabeth Neswald, David F. Smith, Ulrike Thoms, Corinna Treitel, Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska Elizabeth Neswald is associate professor for the history of science and technology at Brock University, Canada. David F. Smith is Honorary Senior Lecturer in the history of medicine at the University of Aberdeen. Ulrike Thoms is a historian of science and researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science