Radical Pedagogy (2015) Volume 12 Number 2 ISSN: 1524-6345 Parker.pdf Benjamin D. Parker Educational Theory & Practice University of Georgia, USA E-Mail: bdparker@uga.edu You Are Where You Eat: A Critical Analysis of the Neoliberal Structuring of Student Food Consumption in an Urban Food Desert Abstract This article critically analyzes how neoliberalism is implicated in expanding the opportunity gap as it relates to food security and public education. Neoliberalism claims to be a fair system of determining winners and losers by applying capitalistic market ideals to the social and political structures of our nation. However, it can be argued that some groups are failing disproportionately under this paradigm. These failures are not because certain groups are without merit or skill, but because they lack access to basic resources such as healthy foods. An ethnographic memoir of a public middle school teacher in Philadelphia, PA provides the context for the analysis. This article offers a view that power and privilege have an explicit impact on our food, health, and education. Specific pedagogical approaches are suggested as resistance strategies to the dominant discourse of neoliberalism in public schools. Keywords: neoliberalism, food security, geography of opportunity, urban education, critical pedagogy, spatially relevant pedagogy In a number of surveys taken over the past decade, the city of Philadelphia has consistently been ranked as one of the “fattest” or most unhealthy cities in the United States (Yudell, 2013; Bryner, 2012). The city, known for foods like cheesesteaks and soft pretzels, has become emblematic of a national health epidemic. At the same time, public education in Philadelphia has also acquired a