‘There’s no limit to how much you can consume’: the New Public Health and the struggle to manage healthy bodies

Abstract

During the past decade or so, organization studies has witnessed a small but growing interest in the human body, in health, and in the management of life beyond organizational boundaries. In light of this development, this paper investigates how the New Public Health seeks to construct and manage people as healthy bodies beyond the boundaries of formal work organizations. The paper does so through a discourse analysis of a UK health campaign on healthy eating. Drawing on Foucault’s notion of governmentality, the paper discusses the power, limitations and subversion of this campaign by problematizing the neo‐liberal managerialism that it actualizes. Finally, it discusses what implications this has for the New Public Health and for organization studies.

Keywords:

• embodiment
• governmentality
• health promotion
• neo‐liberal management
• power
• resistance

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the reviewers for their helpful comments and the Swedish Research Council for generous funding.