Men eat for muscle, women eat for weight loss

This chapter examines discourses about food in Women’s Health and Men’s Health magazines, and finds gendered ideologies about foodways. While the concept of “good food” is prevalent in both magazines, what is “good” depends on the gender of the target audience. Both magazines advocate controlled eating, but what this is varies. Eating for women is portrayed as having the goal of improving appearance, while for men it is more about improving performance. Further, women are portrayed as both more emotional and more in need of strict control over their actions. We show how these subtle differences in advertisements and articles aimed at women and at men are part of the construction of hegemonic femininity and masculinity.