Male Bodies: Health, Culture and Identity

Jonathan Shepherd (Institute of Education, University of London)

Health Education

ISSN: 0965-4283

Article publication date: 1 October 2000

166

Citation

Shepherd, J. (2000), "Male Bodies: Health, Culture and Identity", Health Education, Vol. 100 No. 5, pp. 223-224. https://doi.org/10.1108/he.2000.100.5.223.2

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited


This book is a welcome exploration into the hitherto neglected realm of men’s health and identity. It sets out to explore the failure to investigate and understand men’s perceptions of their health and masculinity, and ask the question of whether masculinity is damaging to men’s health. This is largely achieved through a series of interviews conducted with men aged 30‐40 living in North‐East Scotland.

The book begins with some basic facts concerning gender inequalities in health, such as higher mortality rates among younger males (for example due to accidents and cancers). It discusses risk factors which may pertain especially to men (such as alcoholism, physical inactivity, and smoking) and how these relate to recent changes in health policy. The book moves on to consider how lay knowledge contributes to understandings of health, and uses a series of highly insightful informant accounts, while considering the concept of male embodiment (the subjective experience of the body) and the management of social identity. Towards the close, implications for practice, policy and research are presented.

What is particularly interesting in this text is the accounts of health provided by the men interviewed. Their definitions varied, perhaps predictably, a perception of health as an overall state of wellbeing, to a view of it as merely the absence of disease. The need to be healthy to work, and thus provide for the family, was mentioned by many, and suggests they see health as a resource, which underpins other valued aspects of their lives, rather than an end in itself. Speaking of what constitutes being unhealthy, many of the informants were able to identify key lifestyle factors predictive of poor health, illustrating that, among this group, there is certainly no lack of knowledge regarding healthier lifestyles. When presented with body images ranging from a muscular, almost robot‐like‐Adonis, to average looking men engaged in exercise, they tended not only to identify with, but also aspire to, the latter. They felt that the perfect body requires excessive physical training, which could only be achieved at the expense of family obligations, a sacrifice few were willing to make. Where men in the past may have been “blamed” for neglecting their health, the accounts presented here show that in many cases they place the support of their loved ones as a higher priority than their own physical fitness.

The two main strengths of this book are its use of qualitative accounts to illustrate key concepts in men’s health, and the thorough grounding of these accounts within theory and discourse in this area. The use of embodiment as an explanatory framework highlights inadequacies with “traditional” interpretations of men’s health commonly adopted by health promotion and public health. For those working to promote and improve the health of men this text will provide a new and valuable conceptualisation of how men live and experience their bodies. It will hopefully pave the way for research and interventions which recognise that health is a subjective experience.

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