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Governing Bodies
POLITICS AND CULTURE
IN MODERN AMERICA
Series Editors:
Margot Canaday, Glenda Gilmore,
Michael Kazin, Stephen Pitti, Thomas J. Sugrue
Volumes in the series narrate and analyze political and social change in the broadest dimensions from 1865 to the present, including ideas about the ways people have sought and wielded power in the public sphere and the language and institutions of politics at all levels—local, national, and transnational. The series is motivated by a desire to reverse the fragmentation of modern U.S. history and to encourage synthetic perspectives on social movements and the state, on gender, race, and labor, and on intellectual history and popular culture.
GOVERNING BODIES
American Politics and the Shaping of the Modern Physique
Rachel Louise Moran
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright © 2018 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved.
Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Moran, Rachel Louise, author.
Title: Governing bodies : American politics and the shaping of the modern physique / Rachel Louise Moran.
Other titles: Politics and culture in modern America.
Description: 1st edition. | Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2018] | Series: Politics and culture in modern America | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017047727 | ISBN 9780812250190 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Physical education and training—Political aspects—United States—History—20th century. | Human body—Political aspects—United States—History—20th century. | Diet—Political aspects—United States—United States—History—20th century. | Physical fitness—Political aspects—United States—History—20th century. | Health promotion—Political aspects—United States—History—20th century.
Classification: LCC GV223 .M67 2018 | DDC 613.7—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017047727
To my parents, Tom and Marilyn
CONTENTS
Introduction. Weight of the Nation
Chapter 1. The Advisory State World War I Made: Scientific Nutrition and Scientific Mothering
Chapter 2. Boys into Men: Depression-Era Physique in the Civilian Conservation Corps
Chapter 3. Men into Soldiers: World War II and the Conscripted Body
Chapter 4. Selling Postwar Fitness: Advertising, Education, and the President’s Council
Chapter 5. Wasted Bodies: Emaciation and the War on Poverty
Chapter 6. Poor Choices: Weight, Welfare, and WIC in the 1970s
Conclusion. Governing American Bodies
INTRODUCTION
Weight of the Nation
In 2010 First Lady Michelle Obama announced a national weight loss and fitness initiative called “Let’s Move.” The public health project encouraged increased nutrition education and labeling as well as changes to school lunches. It emphasized cooperation between schools, corporations, celebrities, and government.1 Almost immediately, the initiative came under sharp criticism. Fox News correspondent Sean Hannity said the program was “taking the nanny state to a new level.” “Michelle Obama,” he explained, “is suggesting what you should feed your children.”2 On another television show that night, outspoken conservative Glenn Beck also sounded off on the initiative. Sure, it seemed like it was just a suggestion now, but Beck insisted such a plan would eventually become coercive. When people continued to make bad choices despite federal suggestions, he reasoned, “now you have to start thinking about punishments. Maybe a fine, maybe even jail.” The road to the french fry police, he explained, “always starts with a nudge.”3
Glenn Beck’s concern about so-called government nudges was pointed. At the time, Cass Sunstein, President Barack Obama’s regulatory czar, was working to make nudging central to administration policy.4 In 2008 Sunstein had coauthored a book, Nudge, in which he argued that most people do a poor job of making their own decisions on everything from health to finances to the environment. Sunstein advocated managing citizens’ choices through what he called “libertarian paternalism.”5 This meant nudging people, or changing the way different choices were presented in
