Eating to live ¿better? Analysis of social representations concerning eating habits and their relationship with health/sickness in the Argentinean press (2009-2014)

Abstract

The aim of this article is that of describing the results obtained in the research entitled “Eating to live (better?). Analysis of social representations concerning eating habits and their relationship with health/sickness appearing in recent Argentinean media speeches (2009-2014)”. The objective consisted of identifying and analyzing the social representations related to eating habits, food, and their connection with health/sickness processes in the ever-growing current context of food industrialization and medicalization. As regards the method implemented, a qualitative approach was used with an exploratory-descriptive design, based on the recollection of news from the written media published nationwide. Some of the results obtained indicate that both eating habits and food were placed within a medical-nutritional speech framework which focuses on the biological dimension of eating habits and on the classification of food, both as healthy or unhealthy, depending on the quantity of nutrients, leaving out the complexity of eating habits within the present epidemiological context.