Children's Conceptualizations of Health, Healthy Bodies, and Health Practices
A poststructuralist approach was applied to conduct qualitative interviews with eight to 11 year old children to address a knowledge gap in children’s conceptualizations of health, healthy bodies, and health practices.
Abstract
Public health officials have been giving increasing attention to, and making behavioral recommendations for, reducing obesity. Many authors attribute these behavioral recommendations to the ‘dominant obesity discourse,’ which rests on the assumption that weight and disease are related in a linear fashion and emphasizes personal responsibility for “healthy lifestyle choices” and the maintenance of “healthy weights.” However, not all researchers and practitioners agree on this discourse’s effectiveness or safety. Because childhood is a critically important development period that sets the stage for health behaviors later in life, it is imperative to encourage children to have broader understandings of health that are not centered on weight. In order to achieve this aim, there is a need to explore children’s conceptualizations of health, healthy bodies, and health practices as well as the factors that shape these conceptualizations. To address this knowledge gap, a poststructuralist approach was applied to conduct indepth qualitative interviews with eight to 11 year old children (n=29). In Study 1, children’s conceptualizations of health, healthy bodies, and health practices as well as how these conceptualizations compared with the dominant obesity discourse were explored. Findings Title of Document: CHILDREN’S CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF HEALTH, HEALTHY BODIES, AND HEALTH PRACTICES