Am I in 'Suboptimal Health
The Narratives and Rhetoric in Carving out the Grey Area Between Health and Illness in Everyday Life
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2250465 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lijiaozi Cheng (0000-0002-6684-0999, Department of Sociological Studies The University of Sheffield Sheffield UK, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | e70005-e70005 |
| Publication date | 2025-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sociology of Health & Illness (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0141-9889 • E-ISSN: 1467-9566 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9566.70005 |
| PMID | 39876486 |
| OpenAlex | W4406936840 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 48 |
This paper examines the concept of 'suboptimal health' (subhealth, 亚健康), a term popularised by traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) professionals and widely used in public health discourses in China at the turn of the century. Despite criticisms of it being a commercial buzzword, subhealth provides a unique lens for individuals to articulate their health experiences concerning work and life pressures. Through virtual ethnography on Chinese social media such as Weibo and interviews, this study explores the usage and implications of subhealth in everyday life. It particularly focuses on how young Chinese people employ this concept to navigate and express health-related issues. Drawing on Leder's concept of the lived body, as well as literature on illness narratives and the sociology of diagnosis and risk, the study argues that attention to the everyday narratives of subhealth could potentially open up a space for a greater range of narratives of embodiment and might even offer a space for collective critique in a context often dominated by individual responsibility narratives. In some cases, it also enables private and public narratives that critique lifestyle factors detrimental to health. Ultimately, this paper hints at the conceptualisation of 'subhealth narratives' as a research framework
Aesthetics · Art · Context (archaeology · Epistemology · Ethnography · Everyday life · Health care · Linguistics · Literature · Media studies · Narrative · Political science · Rhetoric · Sociology · Sociology of health and illness · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology · History · Obesity and Health Practices
Other-Worldly
Phenomenology of Illness
Drugs for Life
The Converged Experience of Risk and Disease
Ethnography in/of the World System
Multi-Sited Ethnography
Subhealth
The experience of risk as ‘measured vulnerability
Ethnography for the Internet
Critical Questions for Big Data
Rage and Redemption
Biographical suspension and liminality of Self in accounts of severe sciatica
Chronic illness as biographical disruption
The genesis of chronic illness
Loss of self
Patients-in-waiting or chronically healthy individuals? People with elevated cholesterol talk about risk
Chronic illness as biographical contingency? Young people's experiences of asthma
The risk experience
The pursuit of preventive care for chronic illness
Colonising the future
Illness narratives
Mental Health in China
A Doctor of the Highest Caliber Treats an Illness Before It Happens
Subhealth
Diagnosis as Topic and as Resource
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |