Struggling over healthy lifestyles the Dutch nutrition education bureau and the individualisation of public health (1940-1980)

Abstract

In the second half of the twentieth century, advice on healthy living became pervasive in Western societies. While scholars have shown how the output of health educators echoed scientific consensus and ideas about 'good citizenship', the impact of their interactions with government and food industry representatives, and especially their complicated relationship with audiences, remains underexplored. This article centres the experiences of the staff of the Dutch Nutrition Education Bureau - now known as the Centre for Nutrition (Voedingscentrum) - by examining health educators' own observations about the efficacy of their work. Using sources such as internal guidelines, surveys, minutes of meetings, and annual reports, it demonstrates how the bureau struggled to position itself towards government ministries and commercial parties. Furthermore, it shows how unsuccessful attempts to reach the general population frustrated educators, and proposes that these struggles partially explain the transformation of the bureau's lifestyle advice in the 1970s into a 'healthist' narrative about the responsibility of individuals. Hence, by analysing the complex interactions between health educators and other actors - in particular their audience - this article sheds light on the historical development of the genre of lifestyle advice.