UC Santa Cruz professor Julie Guthman's latest book, Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism (2011, University of California Press) has been selected by the Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS) for its annual book award.
In the book published last November, Guthman, associate professor of community studies, challenges many widely held assumptions about the “obesity epidemic.” Her book has garnered widespread attention in food-study circles.
The award will be announced publicly later this month at the joint annual meetings and conference of the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society (AFHVS), Society for Anthropology of Food and Nutrition (SAFN), and ASFS in New York, hosted by NYU and the New School.
This is the second award for Weighing In. Earlier this year, it won the 2012 James M. Blaut Innovative Publication Award from the Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers.
In addition, Weighing In is a finalist for the C. Wright Mills award given by the Society for the Study of Social Problems. The Society annually gives the award to the author of what its award committee considers to be the most outstanding book written in the tradition of C. Wright Mills and his dedication to a search for a sophisticated understanding of the individual and society.
Mills, who died in 1962 at age 45, was an American sociologist known for studying the structures of power and class in the United States.
The Society will officially announce the winner at its meeting in mid August.
