Negotiating relationships with food, the body, and physical activity: who is the healthiest of them all?

Healthy eating and regular exercise are things that many people aspire to, mainly for health reasons. However, these practices can be complex given broader societal discourses. This paper aims to critically interrogate the social conditions and discursive formations that underpin everyday exercisers’ relationships with food, the body, and physical activity by using biopower and biopedagogies as a theoretical approach, and healthism as a set of discourses. Photo elicitation interviews with vignettes were conducted with nine participants who were regular exercisers. We constructed three different scenarios from the interview data and the theoretical approach: 1. Anna: A performance-driven, health compliant, private sustainer, 2. John: An identity-fused, health ambivalent, relaxed sustainer, and 3. Maria: An anxious, identity-fused, health compliant, relaxed sustainer. These scenarios demonstrate the complexity of the relationships with food, bodies, and exercise, particularly in informal sport. The participants, shown to be influenced by healthism and biopedagogies, were well-informed about (Western) health and were critical towards health information sources. This paper demonstrates the need for more sociocultural and qualitative research to critically investigate how people negotiate relationships with food, the body, and exercise in a context saturated by healthism, hyper-body norms, and a complex foodscape.