'Health should not have to be a problem': talking health and accountability in an internet forum on veganism.
This article draws upon insights from discursive psychology to examine how participants in an Internet forum on veganism orient to the relationship between food choice, health and accountability. First, we explore the ways in which participants ascribe responsibility for health problems like vitamin deficiency to individual recipients. By suggesting individual practices as a cause for problems, speakers undermine the notion that problems arise through veganism as a matter of principle. Second, we show how participants construct solutions to individual health problems as involving mundane and simple actions. Both discursive procedures enable speakers to resist negative assumptions about the potentially complicated nature of veganism in relation to health protection.
Sneijder
Petra
P
Department of Social Sciences, Communication and Innovation Studies, Wageningen University, The Netherlands. Petra.Sneijder@wur.nl
te Molder
Hedwig F M
HF
D014676:Diet, Vegetarian; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet