Constructing and Reproducing Social Class and Health through Health Lifestyles

• In Event: 3422 - Section on Aging and Life Course Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 03. Early Life

Abstract

Health lifestyles are an important pathway for the intergenerational transmission of both health and social class, but relatively little is known about their development across the early life course. Previous empirical research has focused on the behavioral aspect of health lifestyles, but theory suggests that identities, narratives, and understandings of health are also crucial aspects. We analyzed 57 interviews with primarily White college students to understand how health lifestyles form in early life, arising from and perpetuating social advantages and disadvantages, and how different aspects of health lifestyles interplay. We identified two key phenomena among class-advantaged, but not less advantaged, participants: (1) family socialization into classed diet- and exercise-related health behaviors, and (2) cohesive life course narratives linking these behaviors to morality and worth. Together, these processes reproduced class advantage and good health in the next generation through health narratives and a classed appearance of health, as well as morally justifying participants’ continued social advantages through strong cultural links among health, a thin body, and hard work and discipline. To understand the implications of class for socioeconomic attainment and life course health in today’s U.S. society, we must understand the social meanings of health lifestyles and their development in early life.

Authors

• Stefanie Mollborn, University of Colorado-Boulder

• Adenife Modile, University of Colorado-Boulder