Natalie Beausoleil

Research Interests:

• social production of gender, body, health and illness through popular, medical and scientific discourses
• feminist and other critical approaches
• qualitative research
• arts based research
• arts, health and medical humanities
• promotion of positive body image
• prevention and treatment of disordered eating and eating disorders
• cultural studies and the analysis of media and visual culture

Research Projects:

• The power to heal: promoting artistic activities and exploring the possibilities of integrating an arts program in our medical school. Dr. Wallace Ingram Award.
  Funded by: Medical Graduates' Society. Memorial University
  Role: Principal Investigator
  Duration: 2013-2014
• Health Promotion Through the Arts: Exploring New Methodologies in Research with Elderly Caregivers
  Funded by: Medical Research Foundation, Memorial University
  Role: Principal Investigator
  Duration: 2011-2014
• Promoting Canada's Vitality Message: An Implementation and Evaluation of a School-based Body Image Resource
  Funded by: Public Health Agency of Canada, Healthy Living Funds
  Role: Co-Principal Investigator
  Duration: 2010-2011
• A Pilot Study in Artistic Creativity and Healing for Patients with Cancer in NL
  Funded by: Newfoundland Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation
  Role: Principal Investigator
  Duration: 2002-2008
• Promoting Healthy Living, Self-Esteem and Positive Body Image
  Funded by: Dept. of Health & Community Services, NL
  Role: Principal Investigator for the Body Image Network
  Duration: 2007-2008
• Canadian Youth's Constructions of Health and Fitness
  Funded by: Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)
  Role: Co-investigator
  Duration: 2003-2007

• MED6294 Adv Qualitative Methods
• MED6115 Gender & Health in the Media
• MED6104 Critical Studies of the Body, Weight and Health in Contemporary Western Society

Highlighted Accomplishments

• Research grants funded by SSHRC, PHAC and by the Govt. of NL (see list of research projects)
• Co-founder of the Body Image Network
• Past member of the Board of Directors, Eating Disorder Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador

Selected Publications

• Ward, P. Beausoleil, N, & O. Heath (2016) Creating space for a critical examination of weight-centered approaches in health pedagogy and health professions. In E. Cameron & C. Russell (Eds.). The Fat Pedagogy Reader: Challenging Weight-Based Oppression in Education. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. P.81-90
• L. Petherick and N. Beausoleil (2016). Obesity Panic, Body Surveillance and Pedagogy: Elementary Teachers’ Response to Obesity Messaging. In McPhail, D., W. Mitchinson and J. Ellison (eds.) Obesity in Canada: Historical and Critical Perspectives. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. P.245-269.
• Beausoleil, N., & Petherick, L. (2015). Taking Up the Vitality Message Health Knowledge, Feeling Good, and Pleasure in Newfoundland Children’s Drawings and Talk. Cultural Studies↔Critical Methodologies, 15(5), 407-416.
• L. Petherick and N. Beausoleil (2015). Female elementary teachers’ biopedagogical practices: how health discourse circulates in Newfoundland elementary schools. Canadian Journal of Education. Vol. 38 Issue 1. Retrieved from http://www.cje-rce.ca/index.php/cje-rce/article/view/1428.
• Porter, M. & Beausoleil, N. (2012). Living with their bodies: Three generations of rural Newfoundland and Labrador women. In Rural Women's Health: Gendered Connections. B.D. Leipert, B.Leach & W.F. Thurston (eds.) Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 177-196.
• Shea, J. & Beausoleil, N. (2011). Breaking down "healthism": Barriers to health and fitness as identified by immigrant youth in St. John's, NL, Canada. Sport, Education and Society.
• Beausoleil, N. & Ward, P. (2010). Fat panic in Canadian public health policy: Obesity as different and unhealthy. Radical Psychology: A Journal of Psychology, Politics, and Radicalism, 8(1). Available at http://www.radicalpsychology.org/vol8-1/fatpanic.html.
• An impossible task? Preventing disordered eating in the context of the current obesity panic. Ch. 7 in Biopolitics and the 'obesity epidemic': Governing bodies (J. Wright & V. Harwood, eds.) New York/London: Routledge, p. 93-107 - 2009
• Special Issue: Health Panic & Women's Health. Atlantis: A Women's Studies Journal, 27(2) - 2003
• Activité physique, santé et vieillissement chez des femmes francophones en Ontario. La Revue Canadienne du Vieillissement / Canadian Journal on Aging, 21(3): 443-454. With G. Martin - 2002
• An etiology of objectification: Pam Hall’s New Readings in Female Anatomy. Arts Atlantic, Spring, no. 71: 44-50 - 2002
• Marquage du corps, discipline, résistance et plaisir: les pratiques d'apparence/ de maquillage des femmes» in Du corps des femmes: contrôles, surveillances et résistance. In S. Frigon et M. Kérisit (eds). Ottawa: Les Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa. P.231-253 - 2000
• Afterword in that body image thing: young women speak out. S. Torres (ed.), Ottawa: CRIAW / ICREF, p. 106-110 - 1999
• Makeup in everyday life: an inquiry into the practices of urban American women of diverse backgrounds. In N. Sault (ed.) Many Mirrors: Body Image and Social Relations, New Brunswick (NJ): Rutgers Univ Press, p. 33-57 - 1994