Understanding body image disturbance in the promotion of mental health: A discourse analytic study

Health care interventions in the area of body image disturbance and eating disorders largely involve individual treatment approaches, while prevention and health promotion are relatively underexplored. A review of health prom otion activities in the area of body image in Australia revealed three prog rammes, the most extensive and longest standing having been established in 1992. The aims of this programme are to reduce body image dissatisfaction a nd inappropriate eating behaviour, especially among women. Because health p romotion is concerned with the social aspects or health, it was hypothesize d by the authors that a social understanding of body image and eating disor ders might be advanced in a health promotion setting and reflected in the a pproach to practice. In order to examine approaches to body image in health promotion, 10 health professionals responsible for the design and manageme nt of this programme participated in a series of semi-structured interviews between 1997 and 2000, Three discursive themes were evident in health work ers' explanations of body image problems: (1) cognitive-behavioural themes (2) gender themes; and (3) socio-cultural themes. While body image problems were constructed as psychological problems that are particularly experienc ed by women, their origins were largely conceived to be socio-cultural. The implications of these constructions are critically discussed in terms of t he approach to health promotion used in this programme. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.