Try to be healthy, but don’t forgo your masculinity: Deconstructing menʹs health discourse in the media

The emergence of discourse around menʹs health has been evident now for at least 10 years across academic, policy and media texts. However, recent research has begun to question some of the assumptions presented concerning masculinity and menʹs health, particularly within popular media representations. The present paper builds on previous research by interrogating the construction of menʹs health presented in a recent special feature of a UK national newspaper (The Observer, November 27, 2005). The dataset was subjected to intensive scrutiny using techniques from discourse analysis. Several inter-related discursive patterns were identified which drew upon essentialist notions of masculinity, unquestioned differences between men and women, and constructions of men as naïve, passive and in need of dedicated help. The implications of such representations for health promotion are discussed.