‘If it makes you feel good it must be right’: Embodiment strategies for healthy eating and risk management

Abstract

The following arguments are constructed around the encounter of embodied experiences and societal discourses. On the basis of an ethnographic study of 34 Danish consumers, we present different consumers' strategies in relation to their perception of healthy food and management of food‐related health risk. Drawing on a subsample representing particular subject positions in relation to healthy eating, we argue for an increased role of embodiment in consumers' risk handling. The study shows that because of the overload of information, consumers increasingly turn to personal experiences and bodily feelings as the instrument and strategy for evaluating possible health risk and benefit. Furthermore, the study shows how these evaluations are related to broader political and socio‐economic issues as well as closely intertwined with notion of trust and mistrust. Through embodied feelings, consumers navigate and negotiate their position in relation to social discourses of health and risk. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Why do not you read the label? – an integrated framework of consumer label information search

“…As a consequence of mass food production accompanied by growing urbanization and settlement, regular face‐to‐face contact between buyers and sellers has declined (Coff et al ., ). These trends have resulted in changes in consumers’ food purchase decision patterns and information search patterns (Case, ; Kristensen et al ., ). Consumers read labels to obtain information about a product (what it contains, how it was manufactured, etc.)…”

Hidratos de carbono y práctica deportiva: una etnografía virtual en Twitter

“…Nuestros resultados coinciden además con estudios previos que evidencian que la información que los usuarios cuelgan en la web tiene como objetivo ayudar a otros usuarios a hacer de estos trastornos de la conducta alimentaria un modo de vida (35). Curiosamente, se ha descrito que, debido al exceso de información, hay una parte de los consumidores que se posicionan en cuestiones de salud relativas a la alimentación en función de sus sensaciones corporales, para estos consumidores el hecho de alimentarse del modo que ellos consideran saludable forma parte esencial de su identidad (36).…”

“…Nuestros resultados coinciden con estudios previos que evidencian la capacidad de Internet como herramienta con potencial para promover que la población cambie su estilo de vida (41 fóbicas, al igual que en el caso de la anorexia, conceptualizan estas prácticas no como una patología o un desorden, sino como un estilo de vida de un nuevo colectivo social creado y difundido a través de una comunidad virtual, existiendo comportamientos similares a los encontrados en las tribus urbanas (42). Además, en la línea de otros estudios realizados con consumidores que siguen prácticas alimentarias saludables, el hecho de alimentarse del modo que ellos consideran saludable es para los carbofóbicos parte esencial de su identidad (36).…”

‘Doing’ risk, ‘doing’ difference: towards an understanding of the intersections of risk, morality and taste

“…The close connection between food consumption and risk is evident both among policymakers and health advisors (see, e.g. Townend, 2009), as well as the general public (Green, Draper, & Dowler, 2003;Kristensen, Askegaard, & Jeppesen, 2013;Lupton & Chapman, 1995).…”

“…The individual, through governmental strategies of responsibilisation, is expected to be an enterprising self who is capable of governing their own health and managing their food intake in order to avoid health risks (see, e.g. Kristensen et al, 2013;Peterson & Lupton, 1996). This raises interesting questions about who is able to act as an entrepreneur in their own life, whom the position of the risk-conscious subject is available to, and which bodies are marked out as being at risk because of the consumption of food constructed as dangerous or uncertain.…”