Men's weight loss stories

How personal confession, responsibility and transformation work as social control

Bibliographic Data

ID4218029
AuthorsDanielle Couch (0000-0002-5206-9072, corresponding author), Gil-Soo Han (0000-0003-4135-211X, Monash University), Priscilla Robinson (La Trobe University), Paul A Komesaroff (0000-0002-1360-3375, Monash University), Paul Komesaroff (Monash University)
Year2019
Volume23
Issue1
Pages76-96
Publication date2019-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHealth An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health Illness and Medicine (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1363-4593 • E-ISSN: 1461-7196
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1363459317724855
PMID28803501
OpenAlexW2742203989
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited74

Obesity is considered a public health concern. In Australia, there are a greater number of overweight or obese men compared with women. The media is an important source of information about body weight and weight management. We undertook a qualitative study to analyse men's weight loss stories in a popular men's magazine. Between January 2009 and December 2012, we collected 47 men's weight loss stories from the Australian edition of Men's Health magazine. We undertook thematic analysis to examine the stories. Confession, personal responsibility, appearance and transformation were key themes. The stories describe the men's self-discipline and their monitoring and tracking of their behaviours as activities which supported their weight loss. In this way, the stories promote the importance of such panoptic self-surveillance and self-discipline to the readers. We consider how such stories contribute to the wider synoptic system of media messages about body weight

Economics · Management · Moral responsibility · Political science · Public relations · Social responsibility · Sociology · Eating Disorders and Behaviors · Engineering · Law · Obesity and Health Practices · Psychology · Social Psychology

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