POLS 196 Lecture Notes - Lecture 37: Free Trade, Food Security, Neoliberalism

• School: University of Vermont
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLS 196
• Professor: Bradley Bauerly

Document Summary

Otero argues against independent explanations for obesity: demonstrates how state policies lead to obesity and how a shift in these policies is needed in order to address it; structural explanation. He measures the risk of exposure for low and middle income working people to the neoliberal diet: claims: Food choices are structurally conditioned by income. Industrial diet as it becomes globalized, access primarily by poor and middle classes. Diets change in tandem with changes in agricultural production and land tenure. Neoliberal globalization has expanded the neoliberal diet globally: trade liberalization has worsened the risk of exposure to the neoliberal diet, thus worsening food insecurity. Benefits of liberalized trade were undermined by corporate concentration. Food self-sufficiency is a better guarantor of food security than liberalized trade is. Food diversity index captures shifts in demand for various food commodities by measuring the consumption of: (1) cereals and pulses (2) milk products, eggs and meats (3) oil (4) sugar (5) fruits and vegetables.