Right, yet impossible? Constructions of healthy eating

Abstract

Eating healthily is widely understood as a key way for individuals to achieve and maintain good health, but how people make sense of what healthy eating involves is more complex. In a context characterised by shifts in authority around health and knowledge, and neoliberal and healthist discourses, we ask how the task of ‘eating healthily’ is made sense of in the everyday. We examined constructs around healthy eating in Aotearoa New Zealand, using 118 stories collected using the story completion method. Participants wrote stories in response to a story prompt about a person who was about to start eating healthily. Using a constructionist version of reflexive thematic analysis, we developed four key themes: healthy eating is constantly under threat; to separate fact from fiction; can you afford not to (eat healthily)?; and, healthy eating takes a particular type of person. These four themes told an overarching story of the impossible rightness of healthy eating – healthy eating was simultaneously what one should do, but difficult, if not impossible, to do. This novel method generated a nuanced understanding of some of the representational or sociocultural tensions that may limit engagement with healthy eating.