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‘Healthy Weight’ at What Cost? ‘Bulimia’ and a Discourse of Weight Control

Maree Burns

University of Auckland, New Zealand, mburns{at}orcon.net.nz

Nicola Gavey

University of Auckland, New Zealand

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.

Key Words: bulimia • discourse • obesity • public health • weight control • women

Journal of Health Psychology, Vol. 9, No. 4, 549-565 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/1359105304044039
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[Abstract] [PDF]