Body positive ‘healthy’ women: Representations of health and femininities in women’s health magazine South Africa, 2013-2018
Abstract
This research explores how representations of healthy femininities are constructed through
narratives of Body Positivity in the South African version of Women’s Health magazine from
2013 to 2018. In my thesis, I examine how the magazine romanticises certain bodies and
subtly pathologises others. By conducting a thematic analysis, I focus on the magazine’s
presentation of women’s bodies and how these representations are linked to femininities,
health, and sexuality. From a Body Positive lens, I argue that the magazine represents certain
bodies as normative and ‘healthy’ and other bodies as unhealthy and undesirable.