Swedish nursing home residents are very frail, but a new trend is for nursing homes to adopt a lifestyle profile. Based on interviews with 16 representatives of care organisations, this study investigates the reasons for adopting profiles in this way. The analysis shows that the existence of lifestyle profiles is strongly linked to a market discourse centred on freedom of choice. It is concluded that lifestyle profiles are used as a differentiation strategy in order to justify marketisation, exposing the Swedish eldercare system – which does not permit competition on the basis of price or standards of care – to market forces.