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The bigger society: considering lived consumption experiences in managing social change around obesity

James Cronin (Department of Marketing, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster, UK)
Mary McCarthy (Department of Food Business and Development, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland)
Mary Brennan (School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK)
Sinéad McCarthy (Teagasc Food Research Centre, Ashtown, Ireland)

European Journal of Marketing

ISSN: 0309-0566

Article publication date: 2 September 2014

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to argue that the limited success in addressing rising rates of obesity is underscored by health promotion practices and policies’ failure to consider the instrumental and symbolic functioning of food as part of identity formation, relationship construction and socio-cultural conditioning over consumers’ life course events. The aim of this paper is to ignite the power of critical approaches that seek social change through contextualising the subjectivities of obese individuals’ personal lived experiences with food.

Design/methodology/approach

Taking a transformative consumer research approach which recognises the range of theories and paradigms required to comprehend and positively influence well-being, this paper draws on the work of Foucault and Bourdieu to study the discourses of 21 obese adult consumers.

Findings

The research shows that food behaviours conducive to weight gain are enmeshed in participants’ biographies and everyday experiences across the arenas of identity, environment and the body. Transposable dispositions are formed across these arenas which often can be at odds with practices of self-care and frame how individuals use food in their responses to significant life occurrences.

Practical implications

The findings provide an avenue to potentially guide policymakers in shaping health-promotion programmes which assist consumers in self-regulation without compromising their relational identities, interests and self-knowledge.

Originality/value

This paper makes several important contributions to the managerial understanding of obesity, including the consideration of “obesogenecity” beyond its relativity to the temporal surroundings of “built” and social fields in the here and now, and more relative to the illimitable occasions, times, spaces or stages consumers traverse through their lives.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the Irish Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food under the Food Institutional Research Measure of the National Development Plan and is part of the National Adult Nutrition Survey (NANS).

Citation

Cronin, J., McCarthy, M., Brennan, M. and McCarthy, S. (2014), "The bigger society: considering lived consumption experiences in managing social change around obesity", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 48 No. 9/10, pp. 1558-1578. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-02-2013-0065

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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