Modifications of eating habits trough integral nutritional treatment: Factors that lead to their success or failure

Abstract

This study seeks to explore and understand, from a socio-anthropological perspective, the reasons that make social actors with chronic-degenerative diseases manage -or not- changes in their eating habits, as well as the social representations of food and health from their own subjectivity, which they participate in an institutional prevention program. A qualitative research approach to this subject is based on the use of the concept of representations that allows understanding the importance of social actors' conceptions and assessments of diet and its impact on health, in terms of changes in their eating habits. The empirical evidence for the article was collected through 19 interviews, (13 women and 6 men), on average 45 years old, users of the nutrition service in a first level social security clinic in the city of Cuernavaca, Morelos. The main results show that changes in eating habits are related to the representation of food as a cure, as well as the level of family support in receiving and assessing the integral nutritional therapy. Results also suggest that actors that perceive positive effects of integral nutritional therapy controlling their diseases are more willing to keep up their treatments.