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Abstract

Robert Lustig’s (2009) lecture on YouTube “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” animated a widespread conversation about whether sugar poisons bodies. Discourse following the lecture warrants analysis to gage how the meaning of the lecture transformed from a critique of food systems into individual actions. I argue that citationality of “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” fosters healthism by grounding sugar’s toxicity in scientific and affective reasoning that compels individual actions like abstinence from sugar. The pediatrician's lecture enabled the construction of a supposedly "moral eater" who removes sugar from consumption to avoid the poison's consequences. This paper offers tools for examining the spread of texts across digital media and challenging the repetition of messages that condense health into individual solutions.

Journal Title

Iowa Journal of Communication

Volume

57

Issue

1

First Page

138

Last Page

163

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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