ABSTRACT
In a recently published book about the current nutrition discourse in Western cultures, Crotty (1995) describes what she calls ‘good nutrition’ – that is, current views about food and health promulgated by experts such as doctors, scientists, and nutritionists – as a form of social control. Crotty sees this form of social control as not necessarily a conspiratorial state of affairs, but more to do with control ‘exercised by any social institution which attempts to ensure that people follow the rules it sees as acceptable’ (Crotty, 1995: 65). Crotty points out that current nutrition strategies engender a form of control which is scientistic: where a population is encouraged to adopt specific conduct in regard to food based upon assumptions that it is a ‘sick population’ and, as such, everyone is in need of dietary reform. These assumptions are based on dietary surveys which indicate that, as a whole, the population is not following dietary recommendations. Diagnosed as ‘sick’ and ‘non-compliant’, the population is subjected to rational, scientific, dietary modifications through mass education strategies.
