Paper short abstract:

Light meal (qingshi) is a fashion food in contemporary China. Despite medical authorities' debunk, it is believed to bear transformative effects to make busy urban residents healthier. In-depth 1-on-1 interviews reveal commoned sensory experience as the key to the widely perceived healthy effects.

Paper long abstract:

Since the 2010s, the light meal (轻食) has gained surging popularity in Chinese cities with social media promotions. Without an official definition, it is described generally as nice-looking, simply seasoned, and time-efficient food promoting healthiness and weight loss. Although professional dieticians and nutritionists have been accusing its exaggerated advertisement, it is still cherished by many young adults who describe the light meal eating experience as transformative: keeping the 'sub-healthy (亚健康)' urban residents healthier. Sub-healthiness, widely accepted in China, states that most people are neither completely healthy nor really sick, but somewhere in between and in need of care to avoid slipping into sickness.

28 individual interviews with these light meal eaters, recruited in Beijing, highlight 'commoned' sensory experiences to be the key to such transformative effects. Light meals are collectively framed by eaters and promoters as closely tied to the habitus of aspiring young adults, the predominant Asian beauty standards favouring slim body shapes, the socio-historical contexts of rapid urbanization, and the emerging neoliberalist awareness of self-care. They thereby foster shared visceral feelings of being lighter (mentally and physically), more refreshed, closer to nature, and healthier during or after eating light meals.

Yet, such sensory experiences are contested and constantly reshaped: while they are beyond individuals, individuals can still interpret their own feelings, which would in turn feed back into the commoned sensescapes. Biomedical hegemony is simultaneously rejecting, negating, yet contributing to, and consolidating the collective sense-making.