ABSTRACT SCOTT, MICHELE LYNN. Consumed by Health
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ABSTRACT SCOTT, MICHELE LYNN. Consumed by Health: How Extreme Heath Practices Shape Identities. (Under the direction of Dr. Michaela DeSoucey and Dr. Michael Schwalbe). Crawford’s (1980) work on healthism as an ideology is still used widely in academic conversations about food, diet, physical fitness and health more broadly. However, much about social life has changed since 1980. It follows that healthism, too, is likely to have undergone changes as the cultural context in which it is produced and reproduced shifts, as well. In this dissertation, I consider how people use culture to inform their definitions of health, and more specifically, how healthism—as modern cultural ideology—shapes experiences and interactions that inform the ways people manage and maintain various identities. I combine data from two distinct sources and methods: an ethnography at a CrossFit box (or gym), and in-depth interviews with people who follow restrictive diets. I argue that a modern iteration of healthism escalates the enthusiastic pursuit of health to healthiness as an aspirational identity, and also as a way of doing other identities. As such, health practices become one way that people communicate to others that they are a good person. I find that people believe and except health practices to be interpreted by others as evidence of specific character traits, just as they believe these traits are indicative of personal morality and goodness. Further, despite the fact healthist rhetoric is often highly individualistic, modern healthism is necessarily relational. Even deeply personal feelings of selF-efficacy created interpersonal bonds—group and otherwise—such that the positive emotional effects of healthism require interaction with others. Thus, the defining characteristics of modern healthism are first, that healthism indicates personal identities, and second, that these identities must be, in part, validated by significant others. © Copyright 2019 by Michele Scott Consumed by Health: How Extreme Heath Practices Shape Identities by Michele Lynn Scott A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Sociology Raleigh, North Carolina 2019 APPROVED BY: _______________________________ _______________________________ Dr. Michaela DeSoucey Dr. Michael Schwalbe Committee Co-Chair Committee Co-Chair _______________________________ _______________________________ Dr. Sarah Bowen Dr. Celeste Curington ii DEDICATION For my grandmothers: Margaret Kingsbury, who believed I had a book in me, and Helen Scott, who surely had books within her, but did not have the opportunity to write. iii BIOGRAPHY Michele Scott was born in Evansville, Indiana, but claims Tennessee as home. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in English Writing and Political Science from Ball State University and a Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Memphis. She is currently a happy resident of Chicago, Illinois, where she is learning to redefine her conceptual understandings of “cold weather,” “bad traffic,” and “pizza.” iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to my mother and father, for their unwavering emotional encouragement and financial support. I would not have been able to complete this degree without it. And to my momma, especially: it was not lost on me that, even as I was reading about emotional labor, I was asking for a lot of it to be performed on my behalf. Thank you for continuing to accept the late night (and mid-morning, and early evening…) phone calls and listening as I attempted to navigate graduate school. Thank you to Michaela DeSoucey, who always seemed to know exactly what I needed, whether that was an article, an entire literature, or some quality time holding a baby. Thank you for insisting that I take time for myself, and for validating that so many of the hard things that happened over a 5-year time period were, in fact, hard. Thank you for giving me enough intellectual freedom to maintain curiosity and enough guidance to not get lost. I came to North Carolina State University with my fingers crossed that I would get the chance to work with you; I had no idea how lucky I would be to have that opportunity. Thank you to Michael Schwalbe, who always believed this project could be better than I did and for refusing to let me settle. Your excitement and interest in this project inspired excitement and interest in me and made me confident I could turn what started out as coursework into something much bigger. Thank you to Sarah Bowen, who met any roadblock I encountered with a deliberate and thoughtful plan. Having a plan helped solve problems in practical ways, but also made me believe they were solvable. Thank you to Celeste Curington, who came into this project very last minute. I know that it is no small ask, and your willingness and enthusiasm to offer your expertise is humbling. v Thank you to Wanda Rushing, who first suggested I consider sociology as a discipline and believed I would be good at it. Your mentorship and friendship has far surpassed your obligations to me as your student, and I could not be more grateful. I have learned so much from you, about sociology and otherwise, and I can only hope to keep learning. Thank you to Blake, Mari Kate and Lily for your friendship. That word does not seem enough to encapsulate the depths of support I received from you, but I suppose it will have to do for now. Thank you to John and Michael, for answering all the stupid questions I could not seem to answer for myself. Thank you to Carletta, for being so gracious while somehow keeping us all afloat, and for caring so deeply about us as people. And finally, thank you to the good people of Chicago, who met me with open arms at a very strange time in my life. I am looking forward to this summer, which you all have spoken so highly of, since I missed the last one to write this dissertation. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Towards an Enthusiastic Pursuit of Health ........................................................... 1 Health, Lifestyle, and Consumer Culture ..................................................................................... 6 Healthism: What it is, What it is Not ............................................................................................. 8 Meaning-making: Culture, Bodies and Ideology ......................................................................... 10 Identity Work: Making Meaning from Health-Seeking ............................................................... 12 Emotion Work and the Consequences of Healthism ................................................................... 13 Research Question ...................................................................................................................... 14 Case I: CrossFit ............................................................................................................................ 16 Participant Observation .................................................................................................... 20 Observant Participation .................................................................................................... 23 Case II: Restrictive Diets ................................................................................................. 24 Data Management and Analysis ...................................................................................... 27 Overview of Chapters ...................................................................................................... 29 Chapter 2: Achieving Healthy Lifestyles ................................................................................. 31 Lifestyle Rhetoric: “It’s All of It” .................................................................................... 31 Self-Tracking: Practice, and Practice Made Visible ........................................................ 35 “An Education Disguised as Exercise” ............................................................................ 41 Foundations—Bridging Knowledge + Practice ............................................................... 44 Right Character: Eliteness through Suffering .................................................................. 48 Murph: A Case in Point ................................................................................................... 51 Optimized Consumption .................................................................................................. 55 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 60 Chapter 3: Fun, Anger, AND Tears ......................................................................................... 66 vii CrossFit, Identity Work, and “Fun” as a Group Boundary .............................................. 67 Defining fun at the most basic level ............................................................................... 68 “The Type of Person Who Thinks CrossFit is Fun” ........................................................ 71 Fun at CrossFit, Fun at Home .......................................................................................... 75 Fun and “Elite” Status ...................................................................................................... 77 CrossFit and Fun as an Expression of Enthusiasm .......................................................... 80 Anger: Screaming, Swearing and Learning to Get