'I've been like a coiled spring this last week': embodied masculinity and health

This paper draws on research exploring lay men's and community health professionals’ attitudes towards ‘masculinity’ and ‘preventative health care’ conducted in the northwest of England. It is specifically concerned with the findings from the men's narratives that relate to male embodiment and the relevance of this to health and wellbeing. Whilst there is a burgeoning interest in the ‘sociology of the body’ it is only relatively recently that debates about embodiment have been supported by empirical research. Empirical work on male embodiment remains minimal and even less work has been done in considering the links between masculinity, embodiment and health. A series of focus groups and interviews were conducted with men that captured narratives about the lived (male) body in everyday life and its relation to health. These data allowed for greater insight into Watson's (2000) previous empirical work on the ‘male body schema’. Current findings presented here suggest that male bodies need to be considered as both material and representational, and that these two modes are not distinct but continually interact, with each other and with men's conceptualisations of health, to influence health practices and wider social interactions that impact on health and wellbeing.