Obesity has become a topic of public discourse in Britain with claims that it is now one of the major causes of ill health and premature death. In an effort to tackle this obesity ‘crisis’, the UK government has introduced mandatory calorie labelling on menus. This legislation requires that the number of calories associated with a meal option, together with the recommended calorie consumption per day, be displayed on menus. Such ‘calorie accounting’ seeks to prompt the consumer to make menu choices consistent with public health ambitions and to encourage food establishments to reformulate lower calorie menu offerings. Drawing on the concepts of technologies of government (Miller & Rose, 1990; Rose & Miller, 1992) and biopedagogy (Harewood, 2009; Wright, 2009), this paper suggests that calorie accounting operates as a technology of biopedagogy which seeks to discipline and govern the body in contemporary neoliberal society. The paper also contributes to recent accounting scholarship on counter-conduct (Foucault, 2007) by highlighting how calorie accounting produces a form of counter-conduct that coexists with conformity to governmental goals. The paper draws upon three primary data sources: a documentary analysis of 44 policy documents on obesity and calorie reduction, an analysis of 112 responses to a public consultation exercise on calorie labelling, and 20 interviews with relevant actors.

ABSTRACT The office has been a central site of organizational planning, accountability, and control since the 19th century. Yet it has been the subject of relatively little accounting research. Through the dual theoretical lenses of Foucaultian and Labour Process theories, this study employs historical photo‐elicitation methodology to investigate the implementation of management control and accountability in the scientifically managed office which emerged in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Our analysis reveals the manner in which accounting records created new modes of disciplinary control and surveillance within the office and how accounting tasks were de‐skilled in a gradually feminized and mechanized office environment. We also witness the role of accounting in the physical structuring of office space through the assembly line arrangement of office furniture to facilitate paper flows and the installation of record‐keeping systems of surveillance. In addition, our visually derived historical account of these transformations in office administration allows us to reflect on some contemporary issues. The production‐line design and efficiency so promoted by scientific management served as a forerunner to today's open‐plan office, as well as influencing contemporary office management philosophies such as Activity‐Based Working. Furthermore, we seek to inform current debates on the role of accounting in contemporary neo‐liberal society. In the history of the scientific office, we gain an early glimpse of the subsequent role that accounting comes to play within a neo‐liberal agenda as a powerful technology of micro‐measurement and micro‐management.