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.