Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The healthy lifestyle in longevity narratives

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Social Theory & Health Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

What does the term ‘healthy lifestyle’ mean to middle-aged adults (54–65 years)? Participants in an interview study about longevity described the ‘healthy lifestyle’ largely in terms of diet, exercise and prevention, and avoidance behaviours. It was evident that the healthy lifestyle was an ideal that required participants to make many choices in their daily lives based on what they considered to be ‘right’ and ‘good’. In describing their adherence to a healthy lifestyle, we argue that participants’ perspectives reveal contemporary discourses of healthism that are characterised by self-responsibility, as well as notions of risk and consequence. These discourses represent normalising moral technologies that shape citizens’ behaviours and reflect Liechter’s (1997) new secular morality. Participants engaged variously with these technologies ranging from ambivalence, zealousness, negotiation, bargaining, and resistance. Family doctors play a critical role in helping people to navigate the disciplinary apparatus of normalising moral technologies that underpin the healthy lifestyle.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Ayo, N. 2012. Understanding health promotion in a neoliberal climate and the making of health conscious citizens. Critical Public Health 22 (1): 99–105.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beck, U. 1992. Risk society: Towards a new modernity. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Borkan, J. 1999. Immersion/crystallisation. In Doing qualitative research, 2nd ed, ed. B. Crabtree, and W. Miller, 179–194. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. 1990. In other words: Essays toward a reflexive sociology. Translated by M. Adamson. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

  • Bunton, R., and R. Burrows. 1995. Consumption and health in the ‘epidemiological’ clinic of late modern medicine. In The sociology of health promotion: Critical analyses of consumption, lifestyle and risk, ed. R. Bunton, S. Nettleton, and R. Burrows, 206–222. New York: Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Burrows, L., and J. Wright. 2007. Prescribing practices: Shaping healthy children in schools. The International Journal of Children’s Rights 15 (1): 83–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cassel, E. 1991. The nature of suffering and the goals of medicine. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cheek, J. 2008. Healthism: A new conservatism? Qualitative Health Research 18 (7): 974–982.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cockerham, W.C. 2005. Health lifestyle theory and the convergence of agency and structure. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 46: 51–67.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P. 1992. Medicalization and social control. Annual Review of Sociology 18: 209–232.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, P., and K.K. Barker. 2010. The social construction of illness: Key insights and policy implications. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 51 (Suppl 1): S67–S79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crawford, R. 1980. Healthism and the medicalization of everyday life. International Journal of Health Services 10 (3): 365–388.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crawford, R. 1984. A cultural account of “health”: Control, release, and the social body. In Issues in the political economy of health care, ed. J. McKinley, 60–103. New York: Tavistock.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crawford, R. 2004. Risk ritual and the management of control and anxiety in medical culture. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health Illness and Medicine 8: 505–528.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crawford, R. 2006. Health as meaningful practice. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine 10 (4): 401–420.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Daykin, N., and J. Naidoo. 1995. Feminist critiques of health promotion. In The sociology of health promotion: Critical analyses of consumption, lifestyle and risk, ed. R. Brunton, S. Nettleton, and R. Burrows, 59–69. New York: Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Douglas, J. 1995. Developing anti-racist health promotion strategies. In The sociology of health promotion: Critical analyses of consumption, lifestyle and risk, ed. R. Bunton, S. Nettleton, and R. Burrows, 70–77. New York: Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Evans, J., E. Rich, B. Davies, and R. Allwood (eds.). 2008. Education, disordered eating and obesity discourse: Fat fabrications. London, New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fitzgerald, F.T. 1994. The tyranny of health. New England Journal of Medicine 331 (3): 196–198.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. 1973. The birth of the clinic: An archaeology of medical perception. London: Tavistock.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. 1977. Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New York: Vintage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. 1981. The order of discourse. In Untying the text: A post-structuralist reader, ed. R. Young, 48–78. Boston: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. 1983. The subject and power. In Michel foucault: Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics, ed. H. Dreyfus, and P. Rabinow, 208–226. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. 1988. Technologies of the self. In Technologies of the self: A seminar with michel foucault, ed. L. Martin, H. Gutman, and P. Hutton, 16–49. London: Tavistock Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. 1990 The history of sexuality, vol. 1. Translated by R. Hurley. New York: Vintage Books.

  • Fugelli, P. 2006. The zero-vision: Potential side effects of communicating health perfection and zero risk. Patient Education and Counseling 60: 267–271.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fullagar, S. 2002. Governing the healthy body: Discourses of leisure and lifestyle within Australian health policy. Health 6 (1): 69–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A. 1991. Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldman, R.E., D.R. Parker, C.B. Eaton, J.M. Borkan, R. Gramling, R.T. Cover, and D.K. Ahem. 2006. Patients’ perceptions of cholesterol, cardiovascular disease risk, and risk communication strategies. The Annals of Family Medicine 4 (3): 205–212.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grace, V.M. 1991. The marketing of empowerment and the construction of the health consumer: A critique of health promotion. International Journal of Health Services 21 (2): 329–343.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greenhalgh, T., and S. Wessely. 2004. ‘Health for me’: A sociocultural analysis of healthism in the middle classes. British Medical Bulletin 69: 197–213.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harvey, D. 2007. Neoliberalism as creative destruction. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 610: 21–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Katz, S. 1997. Secular morality. In Morality and health, ed. A. Brandt, and P. Rozin, 279–330. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kristensen, D.B., M. Lim, and S. Askegaard. 2016. Healthism in Denmark: State, market, and the search for a “moral compass”. Health 20 (5): 485–504.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Larner, W. 1997. “A means to an end”: Neoliberalism and state processes in New Zealand. Studies in Political Economy 52: 7–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leichter, H. 1997. Lifestyle correctness and the new secular morality. In Morality and health, ed. A. Brandt, and P. Rozin, 359–378. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Llewellyn, R., C. Jaye, W. Cunningham, J. Young, R. Egan, and P. Radue. 2017a. Living into death: A case for an iterative, fortified and cross-sector approach to advance care planning. Anthropology and Medicine 24 (2): 1–16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Llewellyn, R., W. Cunningham, C. Jaye, J. Young, R. Egan, and P. Radue. 2017b. “Why worry about something you can’t control?” Negotiated risk, longevity and health behaviours. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine 21 (3): 259–277.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Llewelyn, R., C. Jaye, R. Egan, W. Cunningham, J. Young, and P. Radue. 2016. Cracking open death: Death conversations in primary care. Journal of Primary Health Care 8 (4): 303–311.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lupton, D. 2013. Quantifying the body: Monitoring and measuring health in the age of mhealth technologies. Critical Public Health 23 (4): 393–403.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacEachen, E. 2000. The mundane administration of worker bodies: From welfarism to neoliberalism. Health, Risk and Society 2 (3): 315–327.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Merleau-Ponty, M. 1962. The phenomenology of perception. Translated by C. Smith. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

  • Nettleton, S., and R. Bunton. 1995. Sociological critiques of health promotion. In The sociology of health promotion: Critical analyses of consumption, lifestyle and risk, ed. R. Bunton, S. Nettleton, and R. Burrows, 41–58. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Brien, M. 1995. Health and lifestyle: A critical mess? Notes on the dedifferentiation of health. In The sociology of health promotion: Critical analyses of consumption, lifestyle and risk, ed. R. Bunton, S. Nettleton, and R. Burrows, 191–205. New York: Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Peterson, A., and R. Bunton (eds.). 1997. Foucault, health and medicine. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reis, S., A. Biderman, R. Mitki, and J.M. Borkan. 2007. Secrets in primary care: A qualitative exploration and conceptual model. Journal of General Internal Medicine 22 (9): 1246–1253.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rose, N. 1999. Governing the soul: The shaping of the private self. London: Free Association Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rysst, M. 2010. “Healthism” and looking good: Body ideals and body practices in Norway. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health 38 (Suppl 5): 71–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwandt, T.A. 1994. Constructivist, interpretist approaches to human inquiry. In Handbook of qualitative research, ed. N.K. Denzin, and Y.S. Lincoln, 118–137. Thousand Oaks, CA, US: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shield, R.R., R.E. Goldman, D.A. Anthony, N. Wang, R.J. Doyle, and J. Borkan. 2010. Gradual electronic health record implementation: New insights on physician and patient adaptation. The Annals of Family Medicine 8 (4): 316–326.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shilling, C. 1993. The body and social theory. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stenhouse, J. 2009. Religion and society. In The New Oxford history of New Zealand, ed. G. Brynes, 256–323. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ward, K. 2006. Towards 2015: The future of mainline Protestantism in New Zealand. Journal of Beliefs and Values 27 (1): 13–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wiest, A.L., D. Andrews, and M. Giardina. 2015. Training the body for healthism: Reifying vitality in and through the clinical gaze of the neoliberal fitness club. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 37 (1): 21–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • World Health Organisation. 1986 Ottawa Charter for health promotion. Paper presented at the First International Conference on Health Promotion, 17–21 November 1986, Copenhagen.

  • Yen, L. 1995. From Alma Ata to Asda—and beyond: A commentary on the transition in health promotion services in primary care from commodity to control. In The sociology of health promotion: Critical analyses of consumption, lifestyle and risk, ed. R. Bunton, S. Nettleton, and R. Burrows, 24–37. New York: Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

This study was funded by a University of Otago Research Grant.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of General Practice and Rural Health, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, 9054, New Zealand

    Chrystal Jaye, Jessica Young & Peter Radue

  2. Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, 9054, New Zealand

    Richard Egan & Rebecca Llewellyn

  3. Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland - Medical University of Bahrain, PO Box 15503, Adilya, Bahrain

    Wayne Cunningham

Authors
  1. Chrystal Jaye
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jessica Young
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Richard Egan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Rebecca Llewellyn
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Wayne Cunningham
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Peter Radue
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chrystal Jaye.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Jaye, C., Young, J., Egan, R. et al. The healthy lifestyle in longevity narratives. Soc Theory Health 16, 361–378 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41285-018-0062-9

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41285-018-0062-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation