The rise of nutritionism and decline of nutritional health in Nauru

ABSTRACT

Since the Age of Enlightenment, the science and technologies of nutrition have influenced what we eat, how we eat, how we experience food, the role of food in society, and ultimately our health. Diet-related non-communicable diseases (DR-NCDs) have simultaneously proliferated around the world and especially in the Asia-Pacific region. Nations such as Nauru have some of the highest rates of DR-NCDs in the world, despite a long history of nutritional advice and intervention. In a context of improving scientific knowledge over the past century, why would DR-NCDs have continued to advance? The concept of ‘nutritionism’ provides a new way into thinking about this contradiction, as it challenges us to make sense of the work nutritional science does beyond changing the nutrients we ingest. Applying this concept to the Nauruan case shows how nutritional science can undermine other cultures’ ways of engaging with food linguistically, socially and also experientially. It exposes the moral values that infuse nutritional science and the way they are experienced by local communities. It also shows how the ideology of nutritional science can be taken up more readily than specific dietary advice and be mobilized by others seeking to encourage profitable but nutritionally-unhealthy dietary practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Nutritionism
• nutrition
• Asia-Pacific
• Nauru
• diet-related non-communicable diseases (DR-NCDs)
• globalization
• healthy food

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for the warm and generous assistance, advice and support received during fieldwork from the Nauruan community. The paper was significantly strengthened by feedback from, and discussion with, organizers and participants of the excellent Transecting healthy and sustainable food in the Asia-Pacific workshop (held at the Yale-NUS College and the Asian Research Institute of the National University of Singapore, 29 July to August 1, 2018) and I am grateful for their contributions and encouragement. I am also grateful to Line Hillserdal and Stanley Ulijaszek for early discussions about nutritionism and the traces it leaves in societies, and to Gyorgy Scrins for taking time to offer generous feedback and discuss with me his groundbreaking work on nutritionism.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

Fieldwork in Nauru and subsequent data analysis were supported by a John Monash Scholarship (General Sir John Monash Foundation (Australia)) and a grant from St Edmund Hall (Oxford). No funders had a role in preparing this paper.

Notes on contributors

Amy McLennan

Dr Amy McLennan is a human scientist working at the intersections of technology, society and wellbeing. She is a Research Affiliate with the School of Anthropology at the University of Oxford, where her research and teaching focuses on culture, food, policy, human ecology and health science. She is trained in biomedicine and medical anthropology, and has experience working in state and national policy making.