“Dedicated to being healthy”: Young adults’ deployments of health-focused cultural capital

Health Lifestyle Theory in a Changing Society: The Rise of Infectious Diseases and Digitalization

“…Class circumstances or SES establish the catalog of options available for the individual to choose from and the rank order of preferences for the individual. Consequently, class circumstances are the key structural variable in determining health lifestyle patterns (Carpiano, Link, and Phelan 2008; Christensen and Carpiano 2014; Cockerham 2005, 2021; Lawrence et al 2020; Mollborn and Modile 2022; Rees Jones et al 2011; van den Broek 2021).…”

“…Consistent with health lifestyle theory, primary socialization in the home was a crucial factor in a child’s health behavior. The decisive variable was not just age but class, as this and other studies (Mollborn, Lawrence, and Krueger 2021; Mollborn and Modile 2022) find that parental SES is reflected in the health lifestyles of their young children.…”

“…Health lifestyles likewise express a person’s narrative about who they are (Frie and Janssen 2009; Jaye et al 2018; Mollborn and Lawrence 2018; Mollborn, Lawence, and Saint Onge 2021; Mollborn and Modile 2022; Stead et al 2011). For instance, Bourdieu (1984) depicted how social tastes in food, drink, and sports preferences were indicative of differences in class standing.…”

“…Moreover, in an era in which health is an achievement, a positive social identity and cultural capital accrue to those who strive (work) to be healthy. This is seen in a qualitative study by Stefanie Mollborn and Adenife Modile (2022) that found the family socialization of socioeconomically privileged young adults imparted standards of discipline and a sense of high moral worth concerning a healthy diet and exercise that were missing in the cultural capital of lower strata counterparts. “Our findings,” state Mollborn and Modile (2022:7), “underscore the roles of not just health behaviors, but identities, narratives, norms, and understandings of health as core aspects of health lifestyles.”…”

“…Other views similarly depict health lifestyles as bundles, constellations, or clusters of health behaviors that occur in patterns and are reinforced by group-level identities and norms (adams et al 2022; Mollborn, Lawrence, and Hummer 2020; Mollborn, Lawrence, and Saint Onge 2021; Mollborn and Modile 2022). The behaviors in question typically involve food choices, levels and types of alcohol consumption, smoking, exercise, and the like that affect one’s health and life span.…”