On Becoming Food

Abstract

This essay reflects on pregnancy as a process through which women are encouraged to become “good mothers” by “eating well”. It uses nutritional guidelines for pregnant women to explore the way in which pregnant bodies are conceptualised as filtration systems that, through self-discipline, can prevent pollutants in food from reaching the foetus – thereby ensuring foetal health, and ultimately population health. This process risks taming or domesticating the political agency of women under the guise of celebrating them as good mothers.