Food prescriptions and limits of medicalization: Polyphony and use of the media in an urban population of mexico

Abstract

The argumentative approach of this work sustains that the “polyphony” speech integrated in the information associated with food, contributes to generate a community resignification regarding the proposed prescriptions by several discursive subjects, which are interpreted into “refractive feeding practices.” These could explain the limited impact that educational interventions have had to the “healthy lifestyles” promotion. The purpose was to study the refractive process related to a prescriptive information about nutrition and identifying the feeding practices generated precisely on a Monterrey, Nuevo León settlement, from their interaction with a discursive framework on key subjects, including the media. A polyphonic ethnography was conducted in ten months, and it included participant observation, ethnographical interviews and a survey. Three prescriptive discourses were identified: restrictive, selective and one associated with “medicamentation.” As a result of refraction of the mentioned discourses, the population generated substitution practices and a restriction on certain food products, expressing their concern for children’s health.