Health and the Social Construction of Masculinity in Men’s Health Magazine

Abstract

Although health has not traditionally been a male concern, the past few years have seen the gradual development of a shared concept of men’s health within the public domain. Amongthe leading participants in the construction of this concept is Men’s Health magazine. In this article, six issues of Men’s Health (June-December 2000) are critically analyzed to reveal the ideological assumptions on which the discourse of the magazine is based. Evidence is presented that suggests that Men’s Health magazine, while giving abundant health advice, does so in a way that reproduces a type of hegemonic masculinity associated not with health but with a variety of negative health behaviors.