Discourses and the construction of common sense about food based on a women's magazine

Abstract

Several factors contribute to the construction of common sense on food with impact on public health. In this study, our hypothesis was that media discourse plays an important structuring role in the process of body aesthetics and food patterns construction and consolidation, producing collective senses that interfere in the choices made by people. The study aimed to recognize the discursive strategies adopted by a media vehicle targeted at women about healthy eating, and their contribution to the formation of common sense on the subject. We analyzed the twelve cover reports of a women's magazine published in 2007, according to the theoretical framework of discourse analysis. A discourse full of ambiguity between beauty and health was observed, with a strong appeal to sensuality and to the cult of the perfect body, predominantly divergent from scientific knowledge in the nutrition area, legitimized by two other cross discourses, the socioaesthetic and the specialized ones. We conclude that the discursive strategies adopted by the media vehicle that was examined contribute to the formation of a common knowledge about eating habits that is fragile and does not enable people to make independent and healthy choices.