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.