NÆRING OG NYDELSE I ERNÆRINGSOPLYSNINGEN: Diskursiv regulering af mad- og spisevaner 1936-1985

Resumé

Gudrun Christensen: Nutrition and the

Pleasures of Eating in Public Information

Campaigns

The article illustrates how the Agency of

Consumer Affairs has tried to prevent

specific diseases and to improve general

health among the Danish population by

changing nutritional practices. The study is a

discourse analysis inspired by Michel

Foucault, based on leaflets published

between 1936 and 1985 in Denmark. The

article focuses on how relations between

nutrition and the pleasure of eating are

constructed and shows how the societal

understanding of nutritional problems has

changed. Earlier on, the leaflets focused on

deficiency, diseases and the improvement of

public health as a means of simple survival

and basic health in the Danish population.

Fifty years later the leaflets discuss the

prevention of specific food related diseases,

such as coronary heart-disease and obesity,

which are seen as a central element of

modem lifestyle. The article shows how an

attempt has been made to place scientifically

based and rational forms of sense at the

centre of everyday life with food and

nutrition. In this process there is no longer

room for food habits based on tradition, the

pleasure for food, preferences of taste or

food habits based on certain culinary

preferences.