Build up or shrink down? Critical Discourse Analysis on Healthism and Gender Bias in Women’s and Men’s Health Magazines

Abstract

This thesis examines two online articles, one from the Women’s Health magazine and one from the Men’s Health magazine, describing healthy food items and behaviours. The aim of this study is to uncover whether these articles present underlying healthist and gendered ideologies in their linguistic features and whether the information provided in the articles upholds or challenges the current Western cultural norms. The method used in the study is a modified version of Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis method that reveals the ideological beliefs in the texts by examining different linguistic features used in the data. These beliefs are made visible by analysing three different value sets (experiential, relational, and expressive values) of the vocabulary items and by examining the textual structures of the data, and the wider socio-cultural context that the texts appear in. The results of the analysis show that both articles promote gendered ideals of health and healthism. The Men’s Health article promoted masculine coded health behaviours such as volume eating and pleasure, whereas the Women’s Health article elevated health behaviours that are stereotypically feminine such as eating less and choosing unprocessed and natural ingredients. This separation of healthy behaviours based on gender shows that the categorisations of what behaviours and foods are healthy is based on ideological beliefs i.e. healthism. Based on these findings the study highlights the increased need of writers to be aware of possible biases aiding their writing as well as the necessity for both readers and writers to practice media literacy.