Med kropp som prosjekt

Abstract

This chapter concerns young people’s relationships with their own bodies. Based on three different qualitative studies, we find that these relationships are characterised by a strong degree of self-reflexivity and a way of looking at one’s body as a part of one’s self-project. We argue that young people today relate to a shared ethos of aestheticisation that includes not only ideals about how bodies ought to look, but also the practice of strict diet and exercise regimes in striving to attain these ideals. We show how this may have consequences for young people’s sense of worth, and discuss how aestheticisation projects seem to be somewhat compartmentalised from a critical reflection on harmful body image pressure: Even though young people – often girls – may be critical of society’s pressure to look a certain way, they do not seem to feel the pressure any less.