“I don’t think that’s like a healthy way to be healthy”: navigating restriction, health, meat, and morality in undergraduate food talk

Abstract

ABSTRACT Eating is situated within a context of politicized issues, such as environmental problems and health concerns; as a result, food talk is imbued with dilemmas. This study explores how twenty-sixundergraduate students negotiate dilemmas around food and position themselves in relation to their eating practices, using Potter and Wetherell’s tradition of discourse analysis and informed by Billig’s exploration of ideological dilemmas. We identified two main food dilemmas. The first involves the contrary values of eating for enjoyment and restricting foods in the name of health. Participants managed this dilemma by emphasizing the limits to dietary restraint and the importance of treating oneself to pleasurable “unhealthy” foods. The second dilemma relates to meat consumption and meatless diets. Meat consumers often positioned meat consumption as natural and meat avoiders as overly moral. However, meat avoiders used several strategies to position themselves as moderate eaters, including emphasizing their practical, not ethical, reasons for avoiding meat. This study provides insights into students’ understandings of the place of food in their lives and its relevance to their identities; it also has implications for educators and professionals who intervene in students’ eating lives.