“WHO I AM? – I AM HEALTHY”: A QUALITATIVE STUDY ON HEALTH IN RELATION TO IDENTITY

Larsen, Camilla Overgaard

4. term

Culture, Communication and Globalization, Master

2016

2016-05-30

236

This thesis examines how the global health wave—focusing on LCHF (Low Carb, High Fat)—is understood in a Danish context and how such a lifestyle shapes the social construction of identity among Danes who use Instagram. Drawing on contemporary theories of globalization, social media, and identity (including Goffman and Giddens), it presents a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with nine Danish LCHF practitioners whose Instagram profiles reflect their lifestyle. The study situates LCHF within a broader health wave in which Web 2.0 and so-called healthies amplify visual self-presentation and community. Informants describe LCHF as flexible, simple, and compatible with good food and quality of life, and many experience a more natural, positive relationship to health and eating. Instagram serves as a key arena to communicate and negotiate a healthy lifestyle; images of LCHF food operate as personal narratives signaling who one is and is not. Participants curate a rose-tinted view and conceal mismatched elements to build a situation-specific health identity in a culture where health often carries moral weight. The thesis thus sheds light on how a global trend becomes localized and mediated through Instagram in Danish everyday life and identity work.

Specialet undersøger, hvordan den globale sundhedsbølge med fokus på LCHF (Low Carb, High Fat) forstås i en dansk kontekst, og hvordan en sådan livsstil påvirker den sociale konstruktion af identitet blandt danskere, der bruger Instagram. Med afsæt i nyere teori om globalisering, sociale medier og identitet (bl.a. Goffman og Giddens) gennemføres et kvalitativt studie baseret på semistrukturerede interviews med ni danske LCHF-udøvere med Instagram-profiler, der afspejler deres livsstil. Studiet placerer LCHF i en bredere sundhedsbølge, hvor web 2.0 og såkaldte healthies forstærker visuel selvfremstilling og fællesskab. Informanterne beskriver LCHF som fleksibel, enkel og forenelig med god mad og livskvalitet, og flere oplever en mere naturlig og positiv relation til sundhed og mad. Instagram fungerer som en central arena for at kommunikere og forhandle en sund livsstil; billeder af LCHF-mad bruges som personlige fortællinger til at vise, hvem man er og ikke er. Deltagerne kuraterer den rosenrøde side af hverdagen og skjuler det, der ikke passer ind, for at opbygge en situationsspecifik sundhedsidentitet i en kultur, hvor sundhed ofte tillægges moralsk værdi. Specialet bidrager dermed med indsigt i, hvordan en global trend glokaliseres og medieres gennem Instagram i dansk hverdagsliv og identitetsarbejde.

[This apstract has been generated with the help of AI directly from the project full text]

Social media ; Identity

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Larsen, Camilla Overgaard:

• who I am? I am healthy. A qualitative study on health in relation to identity (2016)