Journal article
Optimizing Health in the Time of COVID-19: How Neoliberal Health Orientations Dictate Families' Responses
SOCIUS, v 9, 23780231231207600
2023
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Neoliberal health orientations that emphasize specific health behaviors provide frameworks for how class-advantaged Americans understand themselves and their health. The family is a consequential pathway for such privilege to be enacted. Using dyadic interviews with U.S. parents and teenagers, the authors explore how families in two middle- to upper-middle-class, health-conscious cities reoriented their beliefs and practices around health in response to coronavirus disease 2019. Neoliberal health orientations were still the logic many families used to approach health, even as public health messaging focused on protecting vulnerable groups. The authors find that before and during the pandemic, teenagers experienced intense pressure to maintain a classed, thin body via diet, participation in sports, and exercise. Families that adhered closely to neoliberal ideals and encouraged these practices felt that their health behaviors boosted immune defenses against coronavirus disease 2019. However, parents and teenagers worried about the worsening of their fitness and diet. The authors discuss implications for public health and inequalities.
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Details
- Title
- Optimizing Health in the Time of COVID-19: How Neoliberal Health Orientations Dictate Families' Responses
- Publication Details
- SOCIUS, v 9, 23780231231207600
- Publisher
- SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC; THOUSAND OAKS
- Grant note
- We would like to thank the families who shared their opinions and perspectives for this study. We thank Katie Holstein Mercer, Theresa Edwards-Capen, Ian Whalen, Jennifer Pace, Bethany Rigles, Joshua Goode, Fred Pampel, Richard Jessor, Elizabeth Lawrence, Laurie James-Hawkins, Olowudara Oloyede, Kevin Le, Andrew Bennett, and Amber Bunner for their assistance.
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Drexel University
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:001096674800001
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85176466440
- Other Identifier
- 991021860735704721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Sociology