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

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Food
• eating
• health
• diet
• discursive psychology
• qualitative
• vegetarian
• vegan

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. A reviewer of this paper noted that the dilemmas could have been created by the questions. This is an issue for all qualitative research wherein the researcher in collaboration with participants seeks answers to questions that are open to interpretation, discussion, revision, and negotiation. Although one attempts to uncover dilemmas that are broadly cultural resources, only further research can determine this with greater certainty.

2. His name is remembered today through the “Graham Cracker.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Julia R. W. Weaver

Julia R. W. Weaver completed a BA (Honours) in Psychology at the University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada. After completing her degree, she has worked for Alberta Health Services and the Government of Alberta doing research, evaluation, and public policy.

Henderikus J. Stam

Henderikus J. Stam is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of History. His recent work has focused on contemporary theoretical problems in psychology and the historical foundations of 20^th century psychology. He was the founding editor of Theory & Psychology which he edited for 26 years. He is a founding member and former President of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology; a former President of Division 24 of the American Psychological Association (Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology) as well as Division 26 (Society for the History of Psychology). In 2015 the American Psychological Foundation presented him the Joseph Gittler Award for his contributions to the philosophy of psychology.