Indulgence versus restraint: a discussion of embodied eating practices of pregnant Australian women

This article focuses on ‘health’ discourses in pregnancy as interpretive repertoires for shaping embodiment and creating ‘good’ mothers. Drawing on qualitative data, I argue that pregnancy is an extended period of biomedical and cultural surveillance and intensive self-regulation and government. I examine experiences of ‘cravings’ and restricting eating from my sample of pregnant Australian informants to demonstrate this. Eating was also a socio-cultural mechanism for the maintenance of bodily boundaries. ‘Public’ discourses of maternal responsibility are shown to be in conflict with informants’ ‘inside’, ‘private’ lived experiences of eating.