Wearing Wellness: A Comparative Analysis of Diabetic and Non-Diabetic Continuous Glucose Monitoring in a Self-Surveilling Wellness Culture

Introduction Building from established work on wearable rhetorics and wellness culture [1,2,3,4], this project examines how audience impacts health and wellness narratives surrounding Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs) by exploring the following research questions: (1) How does audience impact the marketing narratives surrounding CGM usage? (2) What are the affordances and implications of the narratives told to each audience group? (3) What can this case tell us about the current state of health and wellness culture in the United States? Methods I use a modified conventional content analysis framework [5] informed by Tracy's [6] iterative content analysis and inductive coding methods to identify emerging themes across four CGM websites made up of two audience groups. Results and Discussion Audience impacted narrative content in expected ways in the Type 1 Diabetic group. However, the non-Diabetic narrative positioned CGMs as luxury wellness technologies, which points to possible trends in the larger health and wellness consumer market, especially for consumer health wearables. Conclusion This case illustrates how medical technologies are adapted for non-target audiences by adjusting pre-existing narratives for a different purpose and context, centering an explicitly empowered user. Ultimately, blood glucose is positioned as an emergent health indicator for non-diabetic audiences, which excludes users who cannot afford CGMs that would benefit from preventative monitoring for Type 2 Diabetes.