Obesity and the Covid-19 Pandemic: The Neoliberal Diet as Root Cause

Free virtual talk by Gerardo Otero on "Obesity and the Covid-19 Pandemic: The Neoliberal Diet as Root Cause".

Otero is a Professor in the School for International Studies, Simon Fraser University, V.P. and President-elect of the Latin American Studies Association. He is author of The Neoliberal Diet: Health Profits, Unhealthy People.

Register at: https://arizona.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIoduuorjIsEtFpNuAwa3-mMNS7PF…

Presentation abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 is making it clear that the most vulnerable to dying from this pandemic in North America are those people with “co-morbidities” such as diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and other maladies exacerbated by being overweight or obese (Stokes, et al. 2020). Otero argues that the root cause of this co-morbidity is what he terms “the neoliberal diet” (Otero 2018). This energy-dense, industrial, ultra-processed and cheap diet, popularly known as junk food, is directly or indirectly implicated in making working class humans vulnerable. After providing an overview of the neoliberal diet, he will offer a crossnational comparison of how income inequality accounts for the working classes’ greater risk of exposure to the neoliberal diet in Mexico and the United States to show that eating energy-dense food is much less about individual choice than about having more or less economic access to healthy and nutritious food. Otero will conclude by emphasizing the causal relation between the neoliberal diet and COVID-19 vulnerabilities, and point to state action to overcome this.

Co-sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies, the Center for Regional Food Studies, and the School of Geography, Development and Environment.