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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

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      American Politics and the Shaping of the Modern Physique

      Rachel Louise Moran

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      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

       www.upenn.edu/pennpress

      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

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       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

       Notes

       Index

       Acknowledgments

      INTRODUCTION

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      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 ways that would encourage citizens to make more desirable choices while still letting them believe they were choosing freely. President Obama appointed Sunstein to head the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs; Glenn Beck labeled him “the most dangerous man in America.”6

      At the heart of the controversy over “Let’s Move” and government nudging was a larger debate about the proper boundaries of state power.7 The body is often imagined as too intimate or too private a matter for regulation. Indeed, such body projects involving the government are often hotly contested, whether they concern abortion, maternity care, smoking, or disability. American physique and related matters like diet and physical activity fall into this category. Over the course of the twentieth century, policy questions ranging from physical standards to nutrition guidelines have helped make the shape, size, and development of a person’s body an object of government regulation. These body projects belie the idea of any clear boundary between the public and private

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