Currently a great deal of public discourse around health is on the assumed relationship between childhood inactivity, young people's diets, and a putative steep rise in obesity. Children and young people are increasingly being identified as a population at 'risk' in relation to these health concerns. Such concerns are driving what might be described as new 'health imperatives' which prescribe the choices young people should make around lifestyle: physical activity, body regulation, dietary habits, and sedentary behaviour. These health imperatives are a powerful force driving major policy initiatives on health and education in a number of countries in the Western world. Schools in particular have been targeted for the implementation of a plethora of initiatives designed to help children and young people lose weight, become more active and change their eating patterns inside and outside school.

1. Policy, schools and the new health imperatives Valerie Harwood and Jan Wright 2. Embodying policy concepts John Evans and Brian Davies 3. Beyond school boundaries: new health imperatives, families and schools Emma Rich 4. 'Emboldened bodies': social class, school health policy and obesity discourse Laura De Pian 5. Health imperatives in primary schools across three countries: intersections of class, culture and subjectivity Jan Wright, Lisette Burrows and Emma Rich 6. Neither good nor useful: looking ad vivum in children's assessments of fat and healthy bodies Valerie Harwood 7. The medicalisation of food pedagogies in primary schools and popular culture: a case for awakening subjugated knowledges Rosie Welch, Samantha McMahon and Jan Wright 8. Teachers' talk about health, self and the student 'body' Lisette Burrows and Jaleh McCormack