Health, physical activity and the body: an inquiry into the lives of female migrant cleaners in Denmark

ABSTRACT

Numerous reports identify minority ethnic women as a population group which is greatly affected by chronic illness. Health authorities tend to attribute their health problems to their lifestyle, for example refraining from participation in recreational physical activity (PA). However, little is known about the perspectives of the targets of health promotion, that is, their perceptions of and lived experiences with health recommendations. In this article we investigate minority ethnic women’s attitudes and practices, in particular with regard to PA. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 33 female migrant cleaners from non-western countries which provided insights into their everyday lives. We analysed the material drawing on the literature related to minority ethnic women and recreational PA, with a focus on Foucauldian scholars who have used the concepts of governmentality and disciplinary power. The interviewees considered weight loss the main benefit of recreational PA; this did, however, not lead to participation. Constraints to participation were exhaustion and lack of time caused by the demands of the women’s jobs and a ‘second shift’ at home. These findings confirm that the preoccupation with a healthy lifestyle is a privilege that requires socio-economic resources. Therefore, health policies must adapt to the needs of marginalised groups and take structural factors into consideration, such as the organisation of the labour market and the gendered division of work.

KEYWORDS:

• Health messages
• exercise
• ethnic minorities
• gender
• social class
• qualitative research

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Pirkko Markula for her feedback and many helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. According to Statistics Denmark (2014, p. 11) 8.5% of the Danish population are members of ethnic minorities; 58% of these come from non-western countries.

2. We followed the different worksite fitness programmes to varying degrees. At two workplaces the authors observed several training sessions; at the two other workplaces the authors followed the programmes more closely and joined the cleaners’ training twice a week for a period of 3 months.

3. Approximately half of our interviewees prematurely dropped out of the programmes, which in general did not seem to have an impact on participation in recreational PA after the programme had ended. However, we cannot rule out that the fact that the interviewees signed up for a worksite fitness project might have (positively) influenced their opinions about and attitudes towards recreational PA.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Nordea-fonden.