Health Matters

What are the pillars of your personal ideals of health? How did they form, and what do they show about yourself and your society? But more importantly, do your ideals match your practices? A third-year cohort of students studying Medical Anthropology at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, answered these questions in the form of a photo essay. Students found this activity both discomforting and revelatory at the same time. They had to go through a self-discovery journey where their approaches and ideas of health were self-scrutinised. In the process, rebellion, anger, and dissatisfaction, as well as feelings of defiance, self-improvement, self-care, and self-reconstruction emerged. Stressing the notion of ‘self’, and the role of outside agents, including substances, landscapes, and relationships with others in their daily choices, these accounts reveal a difficult world that students have to navigate each with their specific bodies and genetics, as they transition to the next stages of adulthood. This work provides novel insights into some problematic aspects of health experiences among university students in Aotearoa New Zealand and their agentive responses. The paper concludes with a reflection on the pedagogic and self-reflective processes initiated by this assignment’s design, with instructions to the assignment provided as an appendix.