“You are what you eat” : modernity and the construction of self-identity in healthy eating discourses in a case of digital media

Abstract: The present study aims at the discussion of the contemporary forms of construction of selfidentity through the perspective prompted by the transformations ocurring in the health field. The increasing influence of the health promotional discourses in the media is reflected in the personal sphere, through the popularization of the “healthy lifestyles”. These are understood as supporting the construction of late modern identities. Within this phenomenon, we discuss the specific implications of the health eating discourse as portrayed in a specialized publication, attempting to the overlapping connections between lifestyle, food and discourse in the shaping of self-identities. Through this perspective, food is approached as bearing fundamental implications to the constitution of the individual. The present study is placed within the sociological theories on late modernity, the discourse analysis theories and the media as the provider of the symbolic content.