Open Collections

Liang, Jessica

University of British Columbia

In this study, I investigated how aging and older women were represented in health and fitness magazine advertisements and stories. Magazines reflect social norms and influence everyday interactions (Conlin & Bissel, 2014). Aging portrayals frequently suggest ways in which older adults can and should engage with consumer culture to maintain their health and avoid illness and disability in later life (Loos & Ivan, 2018). To date, relatively few studies have examined the magazine representations of older adults (Devi & Samanta, 2019). There have not been any studies that have investigated health and fitness magazines. Guided by age relations theory (Biggs & Lowenstein, 2013), the purpose of my study was to examine how aging generally and older women in particular were represented across all of the issues published between June and December 2020 in Health, Prevention, and Yoga Journal. The total sample included 208 advertisements and 84 stories. From there, I generated a sub-sample by selecting those advertisements and stories that were related to older adults, later life, or the process of aging. My aging-related sub-sample included 33 advertisements and 6 stories. I analyzed my data using content (Krippendorf, 2012) and thematic (Braun & Clarke, 2022) analytical methods. My content analysis revealed that relatively few advertisements included images of older adults or marketed products for the older age group, and mentions of aging and older women were largely absent across the stories. Similarly, my thematic analysis resulted in the identification of two key themes, namely: a) ‘Degenerate with age’: Aging as a time of vulnerability and b) ‘Do this to live longer’: Older bodies are transformable. The first theme referred to the tendency of advertisements and stories to depict older bodies as vulnerable to physical and mental decline as well as a loss of physical attractiveness. The second theme referred to the ways that the advertisements and stories offered hopeful examples of how consumption could help older adults to remain healthy, active, and youthful. In this way, the advertisements and stories suggested to readers that old age is a problem that could and should be treated with engagement in consumer culture.

Text

2024-01-11

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/87215

Kinesiology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/