Search

This article analyzes lay people’s use of nutritionistic discourse in written correspondence with the Swedish Food Agency, an authority responsible for dietary advice. Examining 60 food related written digital messages, we apply a critical discourse analysis to parse the terms and grammar people use when constructing “food” in scientific terms. Findings show that message writers place nutrients at the discursive center and frequently use terms that indicate preciseness, such as numbers and amounts, reinforced by modality (auxiliary verbs) and transitivity (nominalizations). Messages therefore emphasize the what, but not the how, of eating, implying a focus on food as subject to regulation and control. As such, eating is discursively reduced to an act of ingesting nutrients that can be decontextualized and managed in isolation – as entities to increase or avoid separately. These discursive features preclude the conceptualization of food choice and eating as subjective experiences of feelings, taste, and tradition.

This article analyzes lay people’s use of nutritionistic discourse in written correspondence with the Swedish Food Agency, an authority responsible for dietary advice. Examining 60 food related written digital messages, we apply a critical discourse analysis to parse the lexical items and grammar people use when constructing “food” in scientific terms. The findings show how message writers place nutrients at the discursive center. Message writers’ grammatical constructions instrumentalize food and eating. This is reinforced by the message writers’ frequent use of terms that indicate preciseness, such as numbers and amounts. Messages therefore emphasize the what, but not the how, of eating, implying a focus on food as subject to regulation and control. As such, eating is discursively reduced to an act of ingesting nutrients that can be decontextualized and managed in isolation – as entities to increase or avoid separately. These discursive features preclude the conceptualization of food choice and eating as subjective experiences of feelings, taste, and tradition.

Dietary guidelines can be considered a pedagogical tool, designed to promotehealthy eating at the population level. In this study, we critically examine thebiopedagogies implicated in Sweden’s official dietary guidelines. Published in2015, these guidelines take a potentially innovative ‘holistic approach’ to food andeating, addressing the challenge of formulating dietary advice that considers bothhuman health and environmental concerns. Applying Bacchi´s ‘What’s theproblem represented to be?’ approach, we interrogate how the guidelines frame theinterplay of public health concerns and environmental concerns in making foodchoices. We find that the biopedagogies of sustainable eating, as presented in theseguidelines, implicate the subject position of the ideal eater. The ideal eater valuessustainability, has high cultural capital, and draws on both taste and nutritionalknowledge to make good food choices. However, while the ideal eater is expectedto be aware of environmental issues, these are incorporated into the ideal eater’schoices only in addition to the primary concern of health. Thus, although theguidelines frame a ‘holistic approach’ as the solution to both health andenvironmental concerns, in cases where health and environmental prioritiesconflict, the guidelines’ biopedagogies of sustainable eating align with earlierbiopedagogies of healthy eating.

We examine public trust and distrust in governmental food and nutrition authorities, through analyzing 727 letters sent electronically to the Swedish National Food Agency by lay people. Using thematic analysis, four themes were developed, defining public expressions of trust and distrust in official dietary advice. Trust was expressed as (a) seeking to confirm and clarify dietary advice, or (b) seeking official arbitration between competing dietary advice. Distrust was expressed as (c) questioning and scrutinizing dietary advice, or (d) protesting and resisting dietary advice. Notably, expressions of distrust employed discursive practices that both mirrored authoritative discourses and subverted official advice, by appealing to scientific language and 'alternative' evidence. All letters positioned the agency as the ultimate authority on healthy eating; notwithstanding whether the agency’s advice was to be followed or resisted. Thus, the letters revealed how the same authoritative discourses can simultaneously be a site of public trust and distrust.

National Dietary Guidelines have been published in many countries to support healthier food habits among the public. In Sweden, the guidelines are produced in a process involving experts and stakeholders under the responsibility of the National Food Agency. Stakeholder perspectives on the concept of state dietary advice was explored in this study, by analyzing 40 referral responses on updated guidelines in Sweden 2015. The study focused on ideas about how state dietary advice should be framed and what it should be based on. Thematic analysis was used and resulted in two main themes. 'Securing scientifically proven advice' represented a perspective of the guidelines as to be scientifically correct and verified, and built upon an underlying assumption to present an objective and optimal composition of foods and nutrients that will fit all. Arguments based on nutritional reductionism could be seen, which gave a delimited idea of what healthy food is. 'Getting the message across' represented a perspective of the guidelines to be easily understood by and inclusive to the end user. Clarity in advice was seen to be reached by explaining difficult words, defining amounts and exact mechanisms of why something is a good choice. Also this perspective added to excluding other values of food, especially qualitative ones. The construction of a healthy diet in these remittance responses builds upon a notion of an ideal diet composed on the basis of the best scientific proof and clearly presented so as to be easily understood and practiced. It was clearly based on an individualistic behavioral view making the individual responsible to make informed and good choices for a healthy diet. This approach may be questioned, as it is too simplified to include the complex reality of everyday life.

This article analyzes lay people’s use of nutritionistic discourse in written correspondence with the Swedish Food Agency, an authority responsible for dietary advice. Examining 60 food related written digital messages, we apply a critical discourse analysis to parse the terms and grammar people use when constructing “food” in scientific terms. Findings show that message writers place nutrients at the discursive center and frequently use terms that indicate preciseness, such as numbers and amounts, reinforced by modality (auxiliary verbs) and transitivity (nominalizations). Messages therefore emphasize the what, but not the how, of eating, implying a focus on food as subject to regulation and control. As such, eating is discursively reduced to an act of ingesting nutrients that can be decontextualized and managed in isolation – as entities to increase or avoid separately. These discursive features preclude the conceptualization of food choice and eating as subjective experiences of feelings, taste, and tradition.