'Healthy weight' at what cost? 'Bulimia' and a discourse of weight control

Journal of Health Psychology
Maree Burns, Nicola Gavey

Abstract

Public health messages emphasizing 'healthy weight' link good health to a narrow range of body weights and stress energy regulation to achieve this. We examined whether women who practise bulimia deploy notions of 'healthy weight' in their talk about body management activities. Analysis is based on interviews with 15 women who practise bulimia and on material collected from cultural locations containing 'health promotion' advice. Poststructuralist discourse analysis revealed that slenderness was constituted as healthy in both sites and that the careful regulation of energy intake and output was similarly reified as a healthy practice. We conclude that a discourse of 'healthy weight' cannot be unhinged from a cultural imperative of slenderness for women, and that paradoxically 'health' practices provide a rationality that supports the practices of binge eating and compensating.

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Citations

Mar 20, 2008·Health Care for Women International·Sharon Wray, Ruth Deery
Dec 18, 2013·American Journal of Public Health·Andrea Bombak
Nov 18, 2014·Journal of Child and Family Studies·Allison A PalmbergSuzanne E Mazzeo
Jan 18, 2013·Journal of Mental Health·Eugenie Georgaca
Jul 14, 2005·Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice·Stephen Buetow, Barbara Docherty
Mar 18, 2009·International Journal of Mental Health Nursing·Kristine RørtveitElisabeth Severinsson
Nov 27, 2014·Journal of Eating Disorders·Kate ChurrucaJane M Ussher
Feb 12, 2009·The British Journal of Social Psychology·Alison J Towns, Peter J Adams
Sep 24, 2005·Journal of Health Psychology·Elizabeth PeelJulia Lawton
Jan 4, 2013·Journal of Health Psychology·Satu Liimakka
May 18, 2013·Journal of Health Psychology·Ietza Bojorquez-ChapelaFabiola de Lachica
Oct 16, 2016·Qualitative Health Research·Kate ChurrucaJanette Perz
Oct 12, 2019·Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry·Kate ChurrucaFrances Rapport
Apr 24, 2016·Journal of Health Psychology·Ietza BojorquezClaudia Unikel
Aug 29, 2021·Eating Behaviors·Elizabeth W LampeStephanie M Manasse

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