ABSTRACT

In the global war against childhood obesity ‘everyone’ has been called upon to be part of the solution. A shared ‘interest’ in the shared ‘problem’ of childhood obesity and children’s unhealthy lifestyles has helped to forge alignments between corporations, schools, government agencies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), sporting organisations, charities and a mishmash of other for-profit and ‘not-for-profit’ organisations. What follows is an interrogation of how the notion of partnership is deployed as a tactic to bring together the ambitions of corporations, charities, the state and schools; a strategy used to translate a collective ‘will to improve’ (Li, 2007a) children’s bodies and behaviours into policies and programmes that shape physical activity practice in schools.