Social practice, plural lifestyles and health inequalities in the United Kingdom.

ABSTRACT: Persistent health inequalities pose a continued research and policy challenge in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Current approaches to health research and promotion are predicated on a distinction between wider, social structural causes and individual, health-related behaviours often conceived of as lifestyle choices. Drawing on Bourdieu's theory of social practice, this paper develops an integrated perspective by observing associations between health and structured lifestyle practices. Using the UK Understanding Society household survey, a taxonomy of eight lifestyle clusters is identified, which exhibit significant health inequalities on a number of indicators. But the plurality of practices and subjective orientations inherent in the taxonomy reveals a finer, more complex differentiat

SUBMITTER: Kandt J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6849800 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature