'Health is the number one thing we go for': healthism, citizenship and food choice
Abstract
This paper explores the centrality of pursuit of health to discourse around food
purchasing and eating behaviours. Forty-seven participants from metropolitan and
rural South Australia were interviewed about how they decided what to purchase and
to eat. The majority (n=39) cite the desire to eat healthily as a consideration in food
purchasing. Participants reflect upon a personal and moral responsibility to eat well
and to feed their family healthily, a duty that is supported by models of governance
which favour personal responsibility for health. While all participants reflect upon
this responsibility, it is rejected by a group of males on limited incomes who choose
food on the basis of cost, taste, convenience and lack of trust in the health care system.
The existence of a moral discourse around food is viewed as an example of healthism
in which health is central to all aspects of life and self discipline a means to achieving
health.