An article by Elizabeth Johnson-Young, assistant professor of communication, has been published in the journal Qualitative Research Reports in Communication. The article, “Help Me Understand What I Can Expect While I’m Expecting: What Women in a Prenatal Yoga Class Communicate About Body Image, Fitness, and Health,” reports the results of pilot study using ethnography and in-depth interviews with women participating in a prenatal yoga class.
The results indicated several themes regarding what characterizes the way women in the prenatal yoga class talk about body image, health, and fitness during pregnancy. These themes include: expressions of body image and fitness as communal, expressions of desire for relationship-building with women in similar situations, expressions of desire to maintain pre-pregnancy fitness, expressions that redefine “fitness” and “health,” expressions of concern about post-pregnancy fitness and weight loss, and expressions of self-consciousness. The article provides practical and theoretical implications for future study.
The study will be published in the Fall 2016 journal, but is now available online.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17459435.2016.1196386?journalCode=rqrr20