Food and Health E-Book
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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Food is a major health issue; the links between diet and health are dominant in nutrition discourse and practice. Food and Health: Actor Strategies in Information and Communication identifies the informational practices of nutrition professionals and consumers to study the structural elements of food and health. It analyzes the communication strategies of actors and the dissemination and use of information related to both food for health and health through food. The book considers nutrition from the point of view of public policies, educational organizations, preventive measures, consumers and patients.
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Seitenzahl: 407
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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Table of Contents
Cover
Preface
Introduction
PART 1: Public Space and Communication and Legitimization Strategies
1 Food as a Public Health Problem: Convergences and Divergences of Public and Private Actor Games
1.1. Introduction
1.2. The “crisis of confidence” in the agri-food industries
1.3. Food as a public health issue
1.4. The PNNS: communication and actors’ logic
1.5. Conclusion
1.6. References
2 From Controversy to Media Controversy: Analysis of Communication Strategies Concerning the Health Risk of Growing Limousin Apples
2.1. Introduction
2.2. The Limousin apple at the heart of a controversy
2.3. Unbalanced communication strategies
2.4. From controversy to media controversy
2.5. Conclusion
2.6. References
3 Naming “Antibiotic-Free” Meat: American Agri-Food Industry Communication between Commitment and Guaranteeing Food Safety
3.1. Globalization of the antimicrobial resistance problem and diversification of action programs
3.2. A variety of formulas to name “antibiotic-free” meat in the United States
3.3. Problematization, hypothesis and methodology
3.4. Stages of progressive communication
3.5. Emergence and use of the
no antibiotics ever
and
no/without medically important antibiotics
formulas
3.6. Conclusion
3.7. Appendix. Methodological aspects: corpus building
3.8. References
4 From Health Responsibility to Ethical Responsibility: The Legitimization of New Vegetable Experts in France
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Expert nutritionists and the gradual erasure of the traditional expert figure
4.3. Dissemination of the socio-ecological discourse on vegetables: the dissolution of journalistic discourse in favor of “ethical” value
4.4. Chefs and culinary experts: from the acceleration of public authorities’ health discourse to an integrative discourse on ethics
4.5. Conclusion
4.6. References
PART 2: Education and Prevention: A Critical Approach to Discourses and Dispositives
5 Food at School: Between Science and Norm
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Using scientific expertise to achieve public policy
5.3. Food pedagogy and the challenge of school interdisciplinarity
5.4. Food pedagogy and food communication dispositives: applied or normative science?
5.5. Conclusion
5.6. References
6 Info-educational Dispositives to Educate Children about Nutrition
6.1. Introduction
6.2. Educating about the nutritional model
6.3. Designing info-pedagogical dispositives to educate about nutrition in schools
6.4. Adapted national dispositives
6.5. Conclusion
6.6. References
7 Communication and Nutrition: The Clinician’s Point of View
7.1. Introduction
7.2. The physiology of eating behavior and its dysfunction in terms of obesity
7.3. The “confusiogenic” effect of communication on nutrition among obese people
7.4. The danger of increasing the stigmatization of obese people through communication on nutrition
7.5. The danger of increased eating disorders through nutrition communication
7.6. Conclusion
7.7. References
PART 3: Information, Food and Health: Consumers’ and Patients’ Points of View
8 Information Resources and Information Practices in the Context of the Medicalization of Food
8.1. Introduction
8.2. Taking context into account in the study of information practices and information resources
8.3. More diversified information practices than in the health field
8.4. Sources of information and forms of medicalization of knowledge
8.5. Conclusion
8.6. References
9 Labeling for Sustainable Food: The Consumer’s Point of View
9.1. The potential role for labeling from a sustainable food perspective
9.2. Data collection techniques
9.3. Limited use of information when purchasing
9.4. A widely shared desire for more information
9.5. Opinions expressing beliefs and mistrust
9.6. Conclusions
9.7. Implications for stakeholders
9.8. Appendices
9.9. References
10 Social Appropriation of “Diet and Health” Information: From Public Health Campaigns to Digital Tools
10.1. Introduction
10.2. Dissemination and appropriation of “diet and health” information in public health campaigns
10.3. “Diet and health” information and personalized digital tools: issues and shifts
10.4. Conclusion
10.5. References
Postface
List of Authors
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 8
Table 8.1. Sources of dietary information for adults aged 18–79 years [ÉTU 09, p...
Chapter 9
Table 9.1. Four collection techniques for analyzing consumer expectations and us...
Table 9.2. Description of the online experience sample. (1) Household disposable...
Table 9.3. Description of the sample from the face-to-face survey. (1) Household...
Table 9.4. Additional information available to respondents. On a gray background...
Chapter 10
Table 10.1. Digital “Diet” tools: high stress levels
Table 10.2. Users of “Diet” self-measurement tools: a strong social divide
7
Table 10.3. Aids and obstacles to the use of “diet and health” personalization t...
List of Illustrations
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1. From controversy to controversial
Figure 2.2. The communication contract
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1. Histogram of the subject of meat “without antibiotics” (between 2002...
Figure 3.2. Histogram of the subject of antibiotic use in livestock in The New Y...
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1. Typology of media discourses on vegetables. For a color version of t...
Figure 4.2. Nutritional discourses on vegetables
Figure 4.3. Elements of the health discourse on vegetables
Figure 4.4. Characteristics of injunctive discourse in French food discourses, f...
Figure 4.5. Elements of the socio-ecological discourse on vegetables
Figure 4.6. The elements of the “local” discourse on vegetables
Figure 4.7. The triangle of chefs’ sensory discourses
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1. A multifactorial model for food consumption, developed by the ANSES ...
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1. Example of production partnerships in “Léo and Léa” pedagogical book...
Figure 6.2. The water drinker’s certificate, “Léo et l’eau”42. For a color versi...
Chapter 7
Figure 7.1. Vicious circle of weight gain related to dieting or weight cycling
Chapter 9
Figure 9.1. Questions to identify beliefs about the country from which a food pr...
Figure 9.2. Distribution of information consulted in the purchasing situation (i...
Figure 9.3. Total amount of information consulted for the 14 products offered fo...
Figure 9.4. Amount of additional information required depending on the standard ...
Figure 9.5. Additional information values desired on the packaging, during the f...
Figure 9.6. Credibility granted to different information providers, depending on...
Figure 9.7. Example of product choice during the online experience. The products...
Figure 9.8. Areas of information requested by respondents. These areas include n...
Figure 9.9. Screenshot of the face-to-face survey. For a color version of the fi...
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1. Social appropriation of “Diet” public health campaigns: a strong so...
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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Health Information Set
coordinated by Céline Paganelli and Viviane Clavier
Volume 2
Food and Health
Actor Strategies in Information and Communication
Edited by
Viviane Clavier
Jean-Philippe De Oliveira
First published 2019 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:
ISTE Ltd27–37 St George’s RoadLondon SW19 4EUUK
www.iste.co.uk
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030USA
www.wiley.com
© ISTE Ltd 2019
The rights of Viviane Clavier and Jean-Philippe De Oliveira to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019936605
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78630-262-5
Preface
This book is the second volume in a series entitled “Health Information”, edited by Céline Paganelli and Viviane Clavier. This series is part of the “Health Engineering and Society” collection proposed by Bruno Salgues. Each book is the subject of a specific editorial project, designed in close collaboration with the book editors1.
This book focuses on the link between food and health, and proposes 10 contributions that address the info-communication practices, issues and strategies of actors related to food as a public health problem. It is the result of a call for contributions. The published chapters were evaluated twice blindly, first as a summary and then as full chapters. We would like to thank the members of the reading committee:
– Sylvie BARDOU-BOISNIER, Lecturer in Information and Communication Sciences, Gresec, Université Clermont Auvergne;
– Fausto COLOMBO, Professor of Communication and Media at the Faculty of Political and Social Science, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan (Italy);
– Alexandre COUTANT, Professor of Communication in the Department of Social and Political Communication, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM);
– Laurent MORILLON, HDR Lecturer in Information and Communication Sciences, Lerass, Université de Toulouse;
– Stéphane OLIVESI, Professor of Information and Communication Sciences, CHCSC, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines;
– Caroline OLLIVIER-YANNIV, Professor of Information and Communication Sciences, Ceditec, Université Paris-Est Créteil (UPEC);
– Roxana OLOGEANU-TADDEI, HDR Lecturer in Information and Communication Sciences, Montpellier Recherche en Management (MRM), Université de Montpellier;
– Céline PAGANELLI, HDR Lecturer in Information and Communication Sciences, Lerass-Céric, Université de Montpellier 3;
– Isabelle PAILLIART, Professor of Information and Communication Sciences, Gresec, Université Grenoble Alpes;
– Jocelyn RAUDE, HDR Lecturer in Sociology, École des hautes études en santé publique (EHESP);
– Adrian STAII, Professor of Information and Communication Sciences, Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3.
Viviane CLAVIER
Jean-Philippe DE OLIVEIRA
March 2019
1
We also wish to thank Laure Sterchele for her editorial assistance.
Introduction
This collective work brings together contributions to present theoretical reflection, case studies or feedback on food and health, from an informational and communicational perspective. Food and health are closely linked, identified since antiquity, and are still the subject of active research in several disciplines (medicine, history, sociology and anthropology, management, marketing, etc.). Concerning information and communication, many publications on the subject have aimed to analyze the impact of information and communication media on food-related norms and practices, limiting their analysis to a particular dispositive without taking into account the social logics in which they are embedded and the multifactorial, sometimes contradictory and often “cacophonic” decisive features that participate in the reception of nutritional messages. Research work thus approaches info-communication dispositives according to an operational and instrumental approach, and is based on the premise that they necessarily induce effects, both in terms of norms of thought and behavior.
The book aims to shift the questioning and looks at the relationship between food and health at different levels. Thus, rather than questioning the “how to do” for preventive communication to be effective or to provide reliable and transparent information to consumers1, we suggest a more global approach by:
– identifying and locating the mobilized actors in relation to food and health issues;
– considering their discourses in relation to their actions, strategies and practices;
– characterizing published and unpublished content using clear typologies of information produced and disseminated.
Our contribution lies in the analysis of the conditions of producing health-related information and considers the discourses and actors’ strategies as a positioning that corresponds to that of other actors. It is impossible to understand, for example, the journalistic approach to the subject of food without linking it to the activism of scientific “whistleblowers”, to the activity of public institutions concerned with food or to that of consumer and environmental associations. Without this insight, the analysis would risk reducing the importance of the actors involved in the political and social framing of the subject for the benefit of journalists, who, it is true, by the way they treat the subject, give it a new legibility. These more general considerations make it possible to understand that the messages produced respond to diverse and sometimes contradictory information and communication issues.
The aim of this book is to provide a broader and global vision of info-communication practices, issues and actors’ strategies related to food as a public health problem. The book’s contributions focus on current topics on nutrition that raise health issues: specific food categories (e.g. vegetables, apples, dietary supplements), specific diet-related conditions (e.g. obesity), diet or dietary risk (e.g. antibiotics in meat or fish, pesticides in fruits and vegetables). All the following chapters also make it possible to identify the “experts” who contribute to outlining and defining the challenges of “healthy food”. In this respect, expertise is more than ever “polyphonic”, to borrow an expression by sociologist Francis Chateaureynaud. The hierarchy of the knowledge of researchers, professionals or community activists is difficult to establish for the public (consumers, patients, eaters). This had led to a sense of disorientation in terms of information, especially since at the individual level, expertise can come from relatives. At the level of collective audiences (whether or not they are targeted by the discourses produced), expert figures are legitimized by representatives such as the media, manufacturers, public authorities (through, in particular, the mandated expertise of researchers who guide successive national nutrition and health programs), or opinion leaders such as high-profile chefs. Beyond expert figures, it is also the translation of informative statements that can be questioned, particularly in the field of education. Thus, some contributions focus on the forms of organization of research for the dissemination of scientific information on nutrition and the diversity of media that are mobilized upstream, thus showing how food discourses are constructed and circulated.
In this perspective, this book raises a number of questions. To which issues and social constructs do communication messages respond, driven by the many food actors who consider food as a health factor? How do information sources for the public (general or specialized press, documentation for education, public health information portals, etc.) reflect the diversity of enunciative sources and pragmatic aims? What are the informational strategies used by consumers to evaluate the information available and on what criteria do they base their confidence? More broadly, how do individuals learn about nutrition and how does the health factor influence this practice?
In order to structure the answers provided by 10 original contributions, the book has been organized into three parts.
The first part brings together contributions that analyze different configurations structuring the power relations between actors in the food sector: agri-food industries, researchers, consumers and activist associations, public institutions and the media. Sylvie Bardou-Boisnier and Jean-Philippe De Oliveira address the issue of food from the perspective of creating a public problem. The study highlights both the actors and contextual elements that have contributed to its emergence and politicization, as well as the communication strategies implemented by actors to position themselves in relation to the problem. Christelle De Oliveira and Audrey Moutat are interested in the media coverage of the claims by local residents’ associations regarding pesticides used locally in apple production. Through this case, the contradictory strategies of the actors involved locally and nationally are analyzed, as well as the biases introduced by the media when processing the conflict. Clémentine Hugol-Gential, Sarah Bastien, Hélène Burzala and Audrey Noacco propose an analysis of the journalistic treatment of “vegetable” food in the media and the expert figures convened, which direct information towards a set of values gravitating around health (well-being, pleasure, territory, gastronomy), which ultimately contribute to the framing of “food” in the media, in general. Finally, Estera Badau, using the case of meat without antibiotics, highlights how the agri-food industry in the United States is adapting its communication strategies to the trends of consumers concerned about a healthy diet and the Health Agency’s injunctions. It thus offers a point of view on the subject across the Atlantic and highlights similarities between the United States and France.
The second part focuses on structures identified as key places for communicating information on food and nutrition: schools and hospitals. This contribution, written by Simona De Iulio, Susan Kovacs, Christian Orange, Denise Orange-Ravachol and Davide Borrelli, by studying the case of primary schools in three European countries – Belgium, France and Italy – observes the way science is mobilized in food education programs. The chapter proposed by Marie Berthoud also deals with nutrition education in schools and focuses more specifically on the “Léo and Léa” teaching booklets, developed by the French National Institute for Prevention and Health Education (INPES, Institut national de prevention et d’éducation à la sante) and a committee composed of doctors, nutritionists and teachers. This second part ends with the feedback of Anne-Laure Borel, a university professor and hospital practitioner, endocrinologist, diabetologist and specialist in nutrition at the université Grenoble Alpes and the centre hospitalier universitaire Grenoble Alpes. Through her experience as a clinician, the author of this testimony shows the difficulties encountered by patients suffering from eating disorders and identifies forms of stigmatization related to nutritional communication for obese people.
Finally, the third part focuses on the expectations, practices and conditions of individual resources – whether consumers or patients – in terms of information on healthy eating. Viviane Clavier identifies the specific features of information resources and information practices in a context of strong medicalization of food, and presents the common points and differences with health information seeking. Anne Lacroix, Laurent Muller and Bernard Ruffieux, all three researchers at the laboratoire d’économie appliquée de Grenoble (GAEL), offer an overview of the results of a large-scale survey conducted on the most appropriate labeling methods for food products. This survey was in relation to consumers’ expectations and purchasing practices. This contribution attaches importance to the lowest incomes and the most disadvantaged populations, considered less receptive to information. Finally, Faustine Régnier looks at the digital devices set up by Santé publique France, as part of the French National Nutrition and Health program (PNNS), and analyzes the limits of such a strategy in relation to the stated objective of reaching less well-off population groups, and thus reducing health inequalities.
The link between food and health is, as Annie Hubert points out, an “ancestral” issue, and it is not so much on this evidence uncovered by food historians and sociologists that we wish to insist on, but on the way in which information and communication are convened. Whatever the subjects we are studying, the contributions in this book identify the common points, the breaking points or, more generally, the structuring elements of food and health that can be revealed through information and communication.
Introduction written by Viviane CLAVIER and Jean-Philippe DE OLIVEIRA.
1
Although legitimate, these expectations are based more on the analyses of communication professionals than on researchers in information and communication sciences.
PART 1Public Space and Communication and Legitimization Strategies
1Food as a Public Health Problem: Convergences and Divergences of Public and Private Actor Games
1.1. Introduction
“The mad cow crisis is a revealing one.” These remarks by sociologist Jean-Pierre Poulain [POU 02, p. 37], referring to the population’s sensitivity to the conditions under which animals are raised for food purposes – including slaughter methods – show the links between food, health and the public: the mad cow “issue”, like many others subsequently, has indeed crystallized and highlighted an apparently pre-existing mistrust towards manufacturers. If, today, both industrial and public actors spontaneously and unanimously refer to a “crisis of confidence”, it should be recalled that food has always been a concern of the “Homnivores” that we are and an object of power over the centuries [POU 02].
Many scientific contributions dealing with the relationship between marketing and nutritional norms are oriented towards an analysis of the impact of agri-food industry communications on food practices. These analyses are often based on the premise that marketing creates need, ignoring debates that question the scientific validity of such an influential advertising power on behavior [MAR 04, SAN 06]. Others establish a causal link between state communication via measures promoted by the French National Nutrition and Health Program (PNNS, Programme national nutrition santé) and the norm that guides the eating habits of consumer citizens. However, the sociology of food or health has produced work that makes it possible to analyze communication as supports for objectification, taking into account at least two major trends:
– the social question of the link between diet and health has emerged in a context of “medicalization” of society. Presented by Didier Fassin as a social construction, the medicalization of society “consists of conferring a medical nature to representations and practices that were not previously socially understood in these terms. It is above all the redefinition of an existing problem in a medical language” [FAS 98];
– based on Jean-Daniel Reynaud’s work on the norm, Jean-Pierre Poulain points out that the food sector is subject to “anomie”, that is, the loss of legitimacy for consumers of normative dispositives that lay down rules and procedures to be followed, which, in addition, refers to an “inflation of contradictory injunctions” [POU 02, p. 53; POU 02, p. 71] and to practices that contradict internalized values [POU 02, p. 65; POU 02, p. 89].
These contributions raise two major questions. If medicalization “becomes a social phenomenon, when the recognition of the problem as pathological is coupled with its inclusion in the collective space [and] takes on a political dimension” [FAS 98, p. 07], what are the elements that have allowed the emergence and development of the question of food as a public health problem? The second question refers to the one raised by Jean-Pierre Poulain: starting from the observation that the discourses broadcast in response to citizens’ concerns about the quality of their food accentuate their concerns, he points out that “this situation leads manufacturers and political leaders to question sociologists on ‘how can we make consumers understand all the efforts we make?’” [POU 02, p. 79]. Our contribution does not aim to answer this type of operational question but information and communication sciences can nevertheless opportunely transform this request addressed to sociology by questioning the forms of governability underlying public communication related to food, as well as the interests of actors in the agri-food industry to proclaim themselves as “partners”.
This new question leads to an approach that analyzes communication not as a “tool” aimed at inducing behavior, but as a revealing measure of actors’ “games” and the evolution of their positioning in relation to food. This question also leads to the observation that the media, on the one hand, and political actors, on the other hand, have raised consumers’ awareness of “food and health” (linked to the development of obesity, and also to cardiovascular diseases, among others), that they have only structured a problem already perceived by consumers (loss of “confidence”). In any case, “whistleblower” scientists, like the media, have received favorable reception from consumers in regard to the construction of food as a public health problem. Consumer practices thus appear to be an essential lever for the acceptance by agri-food manufacturers of government intervention in their sector. This point leads us to explore what the French National Association of Food Industries (ANIA, Association nationale des industries alimentaires) considers to be part of the “self-regulation” of agri-food industries: “The first filter refers to the manufacturers: they have their own rules of conduct, so they must discipline themselves” (interview with ANIA, February 23, 2017)1.
After having presented in the first part the crisis that manufacturers have had to face and changes in consumption practices, we will see how they have contributed to the emergence of food as a public health problem and how they have structured decisions in terms of communication strategies aiming at restoring a relationship of trust between consumers and manufacturers.
1.2. The “crisis of confidence” in the agri-food industries
Humanity’s fundamental anxiety about diet is as much motivated by a fear of being poisoned as by a fear of lacking something [POU 02]. The overwhelming supply of food offered by food manufacturers on the French market has erased most consumers’ fear of lacking something, but has given way to growing mistrust of food products due to recurrent scandals and health crises. The proliferation of television and radio broadcasts, press articles or published books dealing with the link between food and health convey anxiety-provoking messages2 to which better informed consumers are particularly sensitive. This situation may seem paradoxical, since monitoring the process of industrialization of the food chain by public authorities, as well as the consultation of agri-food industry actors, has been considerably strengthened since the early 2000s (interview with ANIA, February 23, 2017).
1.2.1. Food and fear
During the 1980s and 1990s, various food scandals (hormone-doped calves in 1980, mad cow in 1996, dioxin-contaminated chickens in 1999) and health crises (diabetes, obesity) created anxiety among consumers about their diet. From the 1990s onwards, Hélène Romeyer noted that the themes covered by the media were “risk, the precautionary principle and scandal” [ROM 15, p. 45]. The health and nutrition theme is then overexposed on the media stage.
The close link between diet and health is long-standing. However, fear of harmful food is relatively recent when we refer to the work of food historians [FER 02, FLA 97] who reported examples of collective fears related to famine or food consumption, as was the case for rye bread. This particular example – when infested by a fungus – triggered the ergot of rye, which had the specific feature of causing gangrene in the unfortunate consumer. The disease, after having been present for nearly 800 years without the cause being known, finally had its origin identified by the botanist Candolle during the 19th Century [FER 02, p. 185]. According to Gérard Pascal, a former INRA researcher and food safety specialist, a “good food” must have four functions: health, safety, satisfaction and service [PAS 02]. Each culture has favored over time one of the four functions. Currently, health and safety functions are a priority for consumers, as the fear of ingesting a toxic product is very much on their minds. Fear is not always based on reality or a level of risk, but rather on the subjective perception of a potential threat [ZAW 04, p. 279]. The increase in the population’s education level has enabled the consumer to move from being a simple eater to being an “informed, demanding and convinced consumer” [FER 02, p. 9]. However, food risks existed well before the 20th Century, so Jean-Pierre Poulain wished to emphasize the “invariant” nature of food anxiety in our relationship with food [POU 02, p. 83] and warns against a “short reading of history”, which triggered the food crisis with the mad cow affair:
While this event is indeed a decisive moment when risk takes on a new form, both in its symbolic and real dimensions, historical analysis is full of stories of poisoning and food crises, the objective scope of which extends far beyond what we are experiencing. [POU 02, p. 78]
According to historian Madeleine Ferrières, awareness of these risks also included “silent fears” [FER 02]. Major scientific advances in the field of hygiene and health have made it possible to show more clearly the role that diet plays in balanced health:
During the 20th Century – following Claude Bernard’s discoveries on the role of the liver in the assimilation of sugars, and Louis Pasteur’s discoveries on microbes – doctors, biochemists, microbiologists and toxicologists joined forces to define the foundations of a diet that protects our health, to identify the dangers that await us on our plates and to minimize the risks of poisoning caused by tainted and contaminated food. [FEI 07, p. 13]
The ingestion of food that was originally unclear due to the accelerated development of industrial food production in the mid-20th Century, stemmed by growing consumer anxiety [FIS 90]. The questions now being asked seem legitimate: where does food come from? What manufacturing processes took place before the food reached our plates? Should we adopt an alternative diet to meet our vital needs without putting ourselves in danger? A symposium organized in 20163 under the direction of Jean-Pierre Poulain, socio-anthropologist of food in charge of Food Studies at the University of Toulouse, addressed this theme: “Food: how can we restore consumer confidence?” During this conference, the main consumer concerns were identified: the lack of control of food safety by public authorities, agricultural production models (pesticides, heavy metals), GMOs, the living conditions and slaughter of animals and basic products used by the industry (such as palm oil). The origin of the fears identified always refers to the same sources: repeated health crises since the 1990s, the media coverage of the so-called crisis, crisis detection tools (the health monitoring system), the dissemination of scientific information establishing a link between a product and a disease, the loss of credibility of expertise, the dissemination of documents by a whistleblower but largely ignored by the general public and daily investigations that reveal the truth about the backstage of the agri-food sector4. Paradoxically, better access to sources of information on food and dietetics (websites, blogs, TV programs and reports) and the increase of public health discourses (by public authorities, journalists), instead of reassuring consumers, create doubts and anxiety about a “food cacophony” [FIS 90].
However, if the relationship of trust between food manufacturers and consumers is deteriorating, it is not so much due to the increased media coverage of health scandals, but because of the reappearance of anguish linked to the complexity between food and health, which “is rooted in the fact that food is a source of energy, vitality, health, and at the same time, a vector of intoxication, a potential cause of disease and disorders” [POU 02, p. 85; POU 02, p. 89]. The media coverage of food crises is thus received by consumers according to ancient anthropological traits. In this regard, Olivier Brunel, Céline Gallen and Dominique Roux [BRU 13] describe the different appropriation tools that contribute to the implementation of the food consumption experience, depending on the degree of product development. Thus, they show that products increasingly close to the state of immediate consumption proposed by agri-food manufacturers cause the social function of food to disappear, in the sense that domestic tasks (peeling, cutting, cooking food) have been transferred to manufacturers. Thus, the consumer is deprived of the act of preparing food products that are ready to be consumed, but whose main processing steps are ignored. Claude Fischler already spoke in 1990 of “unidentified edible objects” [FIS 90]. Food products are more and more abundant and varied in France, but less and less successfully identified by consumers despite all the efforts made, particularly on product labeling. It is this anxiety-provoking aspect of food that communication professionals use to promote the merits of certain foods (organic, food supplements, gluten-free foods, etc.) by adopting a serious discourse based on studies, research results, scientific discourses and evidence that the food produces the health effects sought by the consumer:
The messages […] work very well on frail people such as those with weight problems, people with long periods of illness, malnourished elderly people, etc. These are niche markets, very good markets… We exploit a market of weakened consumers and companies are ready to do anything to attract these consumers […]. (Interview with Agency 2, October 10, 2016)
Some communication consulting agencies partially erase anxiety (at the request of agri-food actors) by including reassuring elements in their messages (image of the food that they process, its naturalness, etc.) and a scientific discourse demonstrating all the virtues of the product and its various components: “We follow the iceberg strategy: we provide a lot of science and solid justifications while saying little” (interview with Agence 2, October 10, 2016).
Products offered to consumers are controlled, validated and/or monitored by European5 and national public institutions. For example, in France, these are the Directorate-General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF, Direction générale de la concurrence, de la consommation et de la répression des fraudes), for the verification of the quality of the product placed on the French market, or the French National Agency for Food, Environment and Work Safety (ANSES, Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire de l’alimentation, de l’environnement et du travail) for the monitoring of label compliance. The validation of the product by public institutions gives it a certain level of credibility without recreating a relationship of trust with the consumer. More recent and multiple scandals have rather reinforced this attitude of mistrust (e.g. horse meat in lasagna distributed by Findus and produced by its subcontractor Comigel in 2013 or salmonella in infant milk manufactured by Lactalis in 2017), which has been accompanied by a more general crisis of confidence towards the industry and its communication policy.
1.2.2. A generalized crisis of agri-food companies and their communication policies
It is necessary to deconstruct the idea that the media coverage of health crises and food scandals is the starting point for a public policy aimed at regulating and monitoring food purchasing, consumption and manufacturing practices. It has certainly been an accelerator for strengthening public action (the French Food Safety Agency, AFSSA, was created by the law of July 1, 1998) [NOL 15, p. 22], but other factors explain the significant position that food has now taken in France’s health policy. The multiplication of actors with sometimes converging or opposing issues and strategies has led to greater media exposure of this subject and to the urgent need to respond to public health problems. Madeleine Ferrières notes that a new food system began to emerge at the beginning of the 20th Century with the adoption of food laws in various Western countries, such as the United States, Switzerland and France [FER 02, p. 431]. There are two opposing approaches to food management: a minimalist approach that emphasizes individual responsibility in which the government has only an informant role towards the consumer and an interventionist approach that requires the government to control information and product quality. Food remains a private matter, and it is partly for this reason that the French government initially chose, before the establishment of the first national nutrition and health program (PNNS) in 2001, to let the market carry out its own work by adopting the first approach.
On many occasions, food crises have given the State the opportunity to strengthen its position as an arbitrator and watchdog over agri-food companies, through framework tools or public monitoring bodies. However, it can be observed that a consensus in the interests of food processing companies – or working with them – is often sought to the detriment of consumer health. The excessive consumption of sugar in France is an illustration of this. The 2006–2007 national individual food consumption study (INCA 2)6 found that more than 4 in 10 French people exceeded the World Health Organization’s (WHO) sugar consumption threshold, while sugar is considered a food additive that can trigger serious diseases such as type 2 diabetes, obesity or cardiovascular disease. Both legislators and food manufacturers have recently taken this problem into account and have taken action to reduce the sugar content of certain processed foods and beverages. For example, an increase in the soda tax was voted on in October 20177, to apply it to drinks containing too much added sugar. Similarly, manufacturers have strived to place on the market processed products with a much lower sugar content8. These efforts, although real and convergent, are not enough, because marketing arguments on the packaging of certain products which mention “no added sugar” can mislead the consumer as to the actual content of the product. Sugar levels are not hidden, as manufacturers must comply with state-imposed nutritional information requirements, but reading the label remains difficult for consumers, as neurobiologist Serge Ahmed points out (see note 9). Despite the many reports published on the health risks linked to sugar, the obligations on nutritional information and the efforts of some manufacturers regarding the level of sugar added to processed products remain very high in relation to the real needs of consumers. This is partly due to the very strong opposition of sugar lobbyists in Europe to adopt laws imposing sugar limits on food and to simplified labeling, which is supposed to help consumers choose food according to its fat, salt and sugar content. The persuasive power of lobbyists can be decisive if we refer to the decisions taken in 2010 by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which had issued a report9, based on studies published by the agri-food industry. This report had considered that there was insufficient scientific evidence to set a reference threshold for sugar consumption. The freedom of action by the public authorities in this context has been very limited in the face of a financial strike force of lobbyists, who defend a product that is essential to the sustainability of their activities.
Food is therefore a private matter, as well as a public and commercial one [DEI 15], as it is highly dependent on health policies developed by public authorities and the development strategies of agri-food professionals. The latter understood that their growth could only be based on a modification of their qualitative offers. Thus, in the early 2000s, advertising and promotion were at the heart of the food sales system, and the nutritional argument took precedence over “all others to ensure the promotion of food industry products” [FEI 07, p. 198]. According to Pierre Feillet, former deputy president of the Institut national de recherche agronomique (INRA), the sums invested by agri-food companies in promotional campaigns were so large that messages pushing for the consumption of profitable products made it ridiculous for governments to promote nutritional education, which protects health. “Each sector finds its feet on the ground and appoints eminent nutritionists to promote the merits of the foods it sells. It is through some nutrients in food, […] that food is promoted” [FEI 07]. This very critical position regarding the influential power of marketing tools and communication campaigns deployed by food manufacturers, however, does not take into account the regulation of the food market imposed by French public authorities for more than 20 years.
Since the 1990s, several studies have highlighted an image crisis of large agri-food companies, their communication and the “bankruptcy” of marketing models, which are increasingly being countered by consumer associations:
So there are consumer groups and there are associations like 60 millions de consommateurs […]. On the doctors’ side, there is the act of “prescribing”; they are almost above their targets of getting people back on the right track. I think these are extremely important safeguards. This forces the industry to be more attentive, beyond the fact that there is significant legislation. But it also allows us to benefit from a better quality diet. (Interview with Agency 1, May 18, 2016)
Communication professionals (advertising agencies, consulting agencies) have themselves questioned the content of messages promoting the benefits of agri-food products. Tensions between the objectives of food manufacturers and the practices of communication professionals have arisen. Professionals are also confronted with ethical principles and must reconcile the customer’s demands (advertiser in the agri-food sector) and their personal ethics:
We are working on different projects with the Danone Institute, Elior, etc. And I sometimes find myself at odds with the demands that the manufacturer can make… For example, I was approached by a laboratory that sells food supplements, […] which would allow us to give “chocolate bars” to certain gentlemen and to us, the women, to lose weight while sleeping. They consulted me because I work a lot with nutrition paediatricians and they wanted to offer a dietary supplement to prevent childhood obesity. I told them, “Where do you get your evidence from to say that?” and we stopped there. (Interview with Agency 1, May 18, 2016)
We note that this lack of ethics is also noted by Agency 1, which is both a communication consulting agency and a research and development company at the service of manufacturers:
Some agri-food companies do not have an ethical principle about the products they distribute. Rather, they have a short-term vision. When some of our advisors return to ethics in their dealings, particularly with regard to allegations accompanying the sale of a product on the market, some companies refuse to follow our advice and decide to change agencies to the detriment of legislation… So, even if some agencies agree to go along with the manufacturers, it can backfire on them and on the manufacturers themselves. The ARPP10 must constantly monitor the market and the advertisements broadcast, and it is therefore up to the agency to properly carry out its role as an advisor to avoid this type of inconvenience. (Interview with Agency 2, October 10, 2016)
The crisis of consumer confidence is becoming widespread, as it is public actors and agri-food manufacturers as well as scientific nutritional experts who are criticized for the links and complicity established between them. The nutrition journalist interviewed agrees with this analysis:
Studies have always been funded by manufacturers, just like drugs. They (manufacturers) put aside those that do not suit them and value others […]. That is why we do not believe in official discourse: it is dated, it is just general discourse. (Interview with a nutrition journalist, November 14, 2016)
Marketing professionals are also highly criticized for the way they work with consumers to promote products known to be harmful. Today, we speak of an “industrial epidemic”, because of the close link established between certain diseases (cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases) and marketing techniques [HAS 17], techniques that no longer seem to work on a category of consumers who are better informed and more attentive to the content of products offered by the agri-food industries.
1.2.3. An evolution in consumer food practices
Food practices are complex and decisive features that food manufacturers must take into account. The paradox of a diet is that it causes health problems – because it can cause illness – and it also has multiple virtues for treating the body. The anxious nature of consumers towards a food considered harmful leads more and more people to adopt an alternative diet, also called in the United States, “food counter-culture” [FER 02], which seems safer because it is better controlled. Some consumers have therefore changed their dietary practices by adopting so-called alternative consumption patterns, which the food sociologist Claude Fischler calls “special diets” (e.g. meat free, gluten free, vegan diet, etc.) [FIS 90]. The individual does not consume this form of food to keep up with others, but rather to be happy and in good health. These changes in practices are taken into account by communication and R&D agencies, and also by companies in the agri-food sector, which offer products that best meet the market, as highlighted by Agency 1:
We innovate […], which creates a new source of value, inventing new markets, increasing our profit opportunities. […] We work in a very limited niche market (natural products, products for children, such as Vitabio or Vita infantile, etc.). We are increasingly orienting our products towards being natural, towards unmodified products. So the products we offer to manufacturers offer a communication that is based less on health-related principles than on naturalness. (Interview with Agency 1, October 10, 2016)
Food practices have therefore evolved according to repeated health scandals, and also according to other factors such as lifestyle changes and the multiplication of available communication media (information sites, the specialized press, etc.), which consumers consult from time to time to obtain information on raw or processed food products from manufacturers. Health and food journalists subject to information prioritization constraints also adapt to what reader-consumers expect, as mentioned by the nutrition journalist:
Eating well is still a concern today that, for many people, seems to be becoming more and more complicated… The notion of healthy eating is relatively recent, however. […] A fundamental trend in the subjects covered is to be noted: organic is a “trend”. […] Ten years ago, we didn’t write articles on organic farming. Nor were there any articles on the ecological impact of meat or palm oil. […] There are now consumers who use the Internet… Before, all this information was found in magazines that were slightly specialized. (Interview with a nutrition journalist, November 14, 2016)
The evolution of consumer practices for the purchase of food and their information practices, linked to a reactivation of food fears, is pushing manufacturers to reposition themselves both in terms of product offerings and the display of social values related to public health. Public authorities have also chosen not to remain inactive in the face of the societal issue of the proven link between food and health by setting up a national system to support good agri-food practices.
1.3. Food as a public health issue
The PNNS, established in 2001, represents a benchmark and is often mentioned as a milestone in the construction of the food issue as a public health problem. The increase of state intervention in the field of food practices to the private sphere has been largely legitimized by scientific research, of which Serge Hercberg is the most emblematic figure as a whistleblower. He has helped to demonstrate and objectify the links between food and health as a social issue. The notions of demonstration and objectification are understood here in the sense that Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman [BER 14] give them about making a problem visible and, in a second step, making it a societal issue. While other subjects, such as antibiotic resistance [ARQ 16], remain confined to a technical-administrative sphere – for lack of “constituted audiences” [DEW 27] – the issue of nutrition has reached a more advanced stage of institutionalization, in which the State is now actively involved. What are the audiences (individuals or social groups) that have reinforced this demonstration by scientists of a request for State regulation on the issue of food and its objectification in the public debate? Has the visibility of the issue of food as a public health issue created a “foundation” for public authorities to use their actions and legitimize their intervention?
