Placed within the field of recent research concerning religion and contemporary religious landscapes, this thesis aims to show conceptions of human life and body displayed in ten Swedish health magazines. The analysis aims to demonstrate the appearance of body and bodily experience and in addition see in what way ”westernized” religious traditions and methods from east Asia may contribute to perspectives of health. The main theories for the study are objectified versus phenomenological understanding of the human body by Drew Leder (1992; 1990) and Kristen Zeiler (2010). The quote in the main title is from the empirical material (Hälsa & Fitness, 2014 (11), cover). ”Strong from inside and out” depicts the core of the outcome, indicating both biomedical and holistic perspectives. With science as a provable reference, the individual’s body seems to be an object to control and shape to optimize goals of esthetic or physical benefits. Here are many mental aspects involved as well as social factors, which shows that the human is a phenomenological creature. The thesis suggests that in order to accomplish health and a healthy relationship – not only towards the body but living through it – the human need to cultivate the sensation of wholeness. Having no clear counterpart, this aspect seems to be easily provided through eastern traditions and methods, treating the human as “one”.

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Health is an organising principle of contemporary neoliberal citizenship, particularly evident in the political rhetoric of individual responsibility articulated around the privatisation of public health and welfare systems. The popular culture of these political technologies is expressed via the discourses of self-help and self-care, exemplified by the commercial success of consumer health magazines, and the responsibilising strategies of public health interventions. This thesis investigates the contemporary function of health magazines by examining both the content and the context of reader letters published between 1997 and 2000 in six Sydney-based 'commercial' and 'community' publications, and incorporating interviews with magazine editors. The three commercial magazines address the health media 'publics' of women (Good Medicine), men (Men's Health) and alternative health consumers (Nature & Health), whereas the three community publications address the 'counterpublics' of people living with HIV/AIDS (Talkabout), sex workers (The Professional) and illicit drug users (User's News). Despite their different social contexts, these six magazines are all exemplary of the advanced liberal health imperatives of Australian popular culture, although the community magazines also empower audiences to facilitate social change. Reader letters are approached via the interpretive lens of cultural studies, in which the specific local characteristics of each text is seen to have wider global implications. Each magazine's letters are positioned within a complex cultural, political and economic context that includes the rise of consumer culture, the social function of narrative disclosures, the increased validation of exhibitionism and the gendered politics of health and medicine. This research advocates for interdisciplinary dialogue between media/cultural studies, health/medical sociology and political theory, suggesting that health magazine reader letters can help to identify the role of popular and alternative media in constructing ideals of 'citizenships' within advanced liberalism.