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Full text release has been delayed at the author's request until June 01, 2025

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Feminist Food Studies in Composition: An Intersectional Approach to Body-Acceptance and Forming Sustainable Relationships with Food

Leigh, Erica Vivian
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0350-0310
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1583404387689571

Abstract Details

2020, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, English (Arts and Sciences).
The subject of my dissertation is a neglected area of Food Studies themed composition courses: women’s relationships with food and the subsequent connection to food and body image, self-esteem, and overall health. Knowing how to eat and having positive relationships with food are a problem for many people, especially women. And my research for the project is situated in this tension. My methodology uses a feminist theoretical lens for a textual, rhetorical, and critical discourse analysis of: (1) the genre of cooking shows, and (2) popular diets. I further conduct a comparative discourse analysis of the two to gain insight about the ways in which women might navigate the tensions between expectations to cook as a service to others, while following diets to achieve or maintain thinness. The results of my analyses provide the basis for an upper-level Feminist Food Studies composition class, with the goal to teach writing concepts through critical analyses of artifacts (in this case, cooking shows), and through research (researching and analyzing diets), designed for any student who might take the course to evaluate the concepts therein based on her own life experiences. Additionally, beyond the immediacy of students, my research seeks to provide an alternative to toxic gendered expectations attached to food. This approach to understanding the rhetoric of women’s relationships with food can additionally aid in re-examining the limitations of diagnosing and treating eating disorders as a mental illness by identifying and understanding them as potential byproducts of toxic grand narratives surrounding food consumption and societal pressures of thinness.
Mara Holt, PhD (Committee Chair)
Sherrie Gradin, PhD (Committee Member)
Nicole Reynolds, PhD (Committee Member)
Devika Chawla, PhD (Committee Member)
197 p.
Composition; Gender; Rhetoric; Womens Studies
Feminisms; Food Studies; Composition; Writing; Identity; Cooking Literacy; Media representation; The Food Network; Body Acceptance

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Leigh, E. V. (2020). Feminist Food Studies in Composition: An Intersectional Approach to Body-Acceptance and Forming Sustainable Relationships with Food [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1583404387689571

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Leigh, Erica. Feminist Food Studies in Composition: An Intersectional Approach to Body-Acceptance and Forming Sustainable Relationships with Food. 2020. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1583404387689571.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Leigh, Erica. "Feminist Food Studies in Composition: An Intersectional Approach to Body-Acceptance and Forming Sustainable Relationships with Food." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1583404387689571

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.