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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Empowering people to make healthier choices
T2 - A critical discourse analysis of the Tackling Obesity policy
AU - Brookes, Gavin
PY - 2021/10/1
Y1 - 2021/10/1
N2 - In response to the heightened risk that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) poses to the health and lives of people with obesity, in 2020 the U.K. government launched a new package of policies intended to stimulate weight loss among the country’s population. In this article, I present a critical discourse analysis of the policy paper which announced these new measures. I identify the discourses that are used to represent things, people, and processes in this policy text. These discourses are interpreted in terms of broadly neoliberal ideologies of public health management. Taken together, the discourses identified contribute to a broadly neoliberal ideology of public health management. It is argued that the policy paper represents an instance of “lifestyle drift,” as it initially appears to engage with social and economic determinants of health but ultimately neglects these in favor of focusing on individual lifestyle factors, particularly in the shape of individuals’ “choices.”
AB - In response to the heightened risk that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) poses to the health and lives of people with obesity, in 2020 the U.K. government launched a new package of policies intended to stimulate weight loss among the country’s population. In this article, I present a critical discourse analysis of the policy paper which announced these new measures. I identify the discourses that are used to represent things, people, and processes in this policy text. These discourses are interpreted in terms of broadly neoliberal ideologies of public health management. Taken together, the discourses identified contribute to a broadly neoliberal ideology of public health management. It is argued that the policy paper represents an instance of “lifestyle drift,” as it initially appears to engage with social and economic determinants of health but ultimately neglects these in favor of focusing on individual lifestyle factors, particularly in the shape of individuals’ “choices.”
KW - obesity
KW - COVID-19
KW - coronavirus
KW - critical discourse analysis
KW - neoliberalism
KW - policy paper
KW - qualitative
KW - United Kingdom
U2 - 10.1177/10497323211027536
DO - 10.1177/10497323211027536
M3 - Journal article
VL - 31
SP - 2211
EP - 2229
JO - Qualitative Health Research
JF - Qualitative Health Research
SN - 1049-7323
IS - 12
ER -