19
From the Digitalization of Society to the Production of a Biomedicalized Food Culture
This chapter presents some of the conceptual elements and ideas that inform my doctoral research. From a perspective rooted in Cultural Studies, I observe the development of what I theorize as “biomedicalized food culture”, made possible by, among other things, the digitalization of society. This research is part of the critical literature emerging from the field of critical studies on food (see, for example, Brady et al. 2012; Koç et al. 2012), which focuses on theorizing unequal relationships, exclusionary regimes or the normativities and stigmatizations that contribute to the production of contemporary knowledge on food as well as the links between food and bodies.
First, I will present some of the theoretical foundations underlying my critical thinking, largely inspired by the work of Clarke et al. (2010) on the biomedicalization of society. I will then define what is meant by “biomedicalized food culture”, by referring to some examples to illustrate how it is deployed and materialized in a whole set of knowledge, practices, discourses, etc., by which “healthy” food and contemporary bodies are defined. In so doing, I will present how digitalization contributes to the development of this particular food culture. I will conclude by briefly presenting some of the issues related to how, through this biomedicalized food culture, “healthy” food and the links between food and bodies are redefined.
19.1. The biomedicalization of society
The theorization of biomedicalized food culture is inspired by the writings of Clarke and his colleagues (Clarke et al. 2000; Clarke et al. 2003; Clarke et al. 2010) for whom the biomedicalization of the social field participates in extension of its medicalization1 and a change in the distribution of biomedical knowledge, reconfiguring the ways in which it deploys and informs its relationship with the living. For Clarke et al. (2003), the addition of the prefix bio to the term medicalization refers to the new possibility of transforming living organisms, both human and non-human, through technoscientific practices and technologies, such as bio-technologies, molecular biology and genomics. These practices make it possible to start from the living itself (e.g. an individual’s tissues) and then transform it or even generate new forms of living (e.g. synthetic biology). For Clarke et al. (2010), biomedicalization is characterized by different interrelated processes2 that contribute to redefining the ways in which bodies, health and life itself are understood. While the medicalization of society has fostered the emergence of knowledge and practices aimed at controlling medical phenomena such as diseases or injuries, biomedicalization focuses on the transformation of the body through technoscientific interventions from the very beginning. Biomedicalization, thanks to the innovations proposed by the technosciences, opens the door to a desire to improve life according to a preventive logic informed by the urgency of anticipation.
This biomedicalization of society takes place in a biopolitical context which, for Rabinow and Rose (2006), favors a mode of governance of life through life itself. The resulting governance strategies are based on the “objectifying” characterization of living organisms, i.e. the development of a whole set of techniques, strategies and systems for categorization and classification based on the measurable and evaluable characteristics of living organisms. It is also in this context that new forms of subjectivity are produced, where injunctions to self-responsibility and health care intersect, with a view to prevention and risk management:
“In this context, individuals move from being passive ‘profane’ patients to being active consumers responsible for their own biomedical future. Whether it is about reducing risks through self-monitoring and lifestyle changes, or submitting to expert testing and control, the onus is on the individual to take what is constructed as crucial biomedical decisions that affect their health” (Clarke et al. 2000, p. 23).
Fostered by the increased presence of computer and information technologies that transform the ways in which bodies are understood, mobilized and worked upon, biomedicalization allows the diagnosis, treatment and transformation of the biological from its very materiality, through the adoption of measures deemed appropriate:
“Health itself and the proper management of chronic illnesses are becoming individual moral responsibilities to be fulfilled through improved access to knowledge, self-surveillance, prevention, risk assessment, the treatment of risk, and the consumption of appropriate self-help/biomedical goods and services” (Clarke et al. 2003, p. 162).
In doing so, individuals are encouraged to act and become active consumers, responsible for their health.
19.2. The emergence of a biomedicalized food culture
The notion of culture in the expression “biomedicalized food culture” is inspired by the work of Stuart Hall (1980) and is therefore part of a Cultural Studies perspective. Here, culture must be understood as being (re)produced through practices that incorporate and materialize what structures or modulates it. “Culture” is therefore observed in the deployment of a set of knowledge and practices, such as the establishment of policies, programs, phenomena related to popular culture, media, and economic, medical and other practices. The methodological and analytical view I take of the development of this biomedicalized food culture is inspired by this definition, which means that I identify and observe a set of heterogeneous practices and discourses that today help to define what and how contemporary “healthy eating” is understood.
To name but a few examples, I observe the deployment of this biomedicalized food culture across the field of popular culture while information about functional foods is numerous. Functional foods are defined and characterized by association between certain health benefits and the ingestion of specific molecular bioactive components that are presumed to have the potential to reduce the risk of chronic disease (definition taken from the writings of Kim 2013 and Scrinis 2012; see, for example, “Les fruits de mer protégeraient les aînés du déclin cognitif” (seafood will protect seniors from cognitive decline) (La Presse canadienne 2016)).
This biomedicalized food culture is also deployed in the field of biological, biochemical or nutritional sciences, multiplying the production of knowledge while questioning the links between food and bodies according to a logic and desire to act on biological materiality. This is the case, for example, with the new field of nutrigenomics research, promoted by the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto, which explores the relationship between genes and food intake. Nutrigenomics attempts to understand how an individual’s genetic variations and particularities influence physiological responses related to the ingestion of certain nutrients, with the potential aim of understanding (and potentially preventing) the risks of chronic disease development3. The presentation of the research conducted in this field promotes the advances that can be expected in weight loss and the supposed prevention of diseases such as diabetes, obesity, certain types of cancer, etc.
Technological advancements are also actively contributing to the development of this biomedicalized food culture, as increasingly precise and personalized monitoring tools have been designed. This is the case, for example, of the “MyFitnessPal” calorie meter, which, thanks to a food database that systematically calculates the calories ingested, offers to help its users lose weight. The personalization and commercialization of technologies that are designed to produce knowledge that unites the body and food operates in a different way with uBiome Inc. The company offers tools and knowledge for analyzing microorganisms, such as bacteria and viruses, that make up an individual’s biological materiality in order to diagnose their state of health and propose a diet corresponding to their body composition (Johne 2017).
These examples are too few to demonstrate the multiplicity of recurrences involved in producing this biomedicalized food culture and the biochemical and biospecific knowledge that emerges. These elements may not seem to be linked at first glance since they seem to be coming from a multitude of distinct domains and produced by heterogeneity of actors in various places. Nevertheless, they highlight how the practices and discourses of “healthy eating” seem to present points of convergence in terms of their ways of producing and mobilizing food and bodies.
Through the production of knowledge that constitutes contemporary “healthy eating”, knowledge about the body is also produced. For example, it is possible to observe the emergence of “plastic” bodies, whose very materiality or trajectory would be considered as possibly transformed or modulated through the ingestion of specific nutrients. The idea of a “plastic” body is also closely linked to the idea of a machine-body, which must be “fed” in an appropriate way in order to maximize its potential and performance, following the metaphor of the machine that requires proper maintenance for maximizing its performance. The literature emerging from critical studies on nutrition allows us to reflect on the issues that arise when links that are too causal, reductive and “universalizing” are created between the ingestion of specific foods and supposed transformations of body components or functions (see, for example, Kim 2013; Scrinis 2013). Thus, through the establishment of a causal, decontextualized and universalized relationship between the ingestion of specific foods and bodies, new normativities by which bodies are understood are produced and the way bodies respond to ingesting foods is understood to be the same (Kim 2013).
These concepts such as “plastic” or “machine” bodies are particularly important in the context of the production and circulation of discourses that link aging bodies to food. Through these discourses, a conception of bodies emerges by which the aging process could be slowed down or even prevented, as if the act of “healthy” eating in itself could guarantee “successful” aging (Durocher and Gauthier in press)4.
These are just some of the bodies that are produced, framed and oriented at the heart of this biomedicalized food culture. At this point, I want to start exploring its deployment modes from the forces that inform development. Thus, I conceive the widespread digitalization of society as one of the driving forces behind its biomedicalization. This echoes Clarke et al.’s (2010) theorization of the biomedicalization of society, which is understood to be made possible through the deployment and use of computer and information technologies, which allow transformations in the distribution and accessibility of biomedical knowledge, as well as in the means and tools developed to capture it5. This biomedicalized food culture therefore contributes, on the one hand, to the multiplication of informative content aimed at informing individuals about what constitutes contemporary “healthy eating”, understood according to its biochemical components, and which are themselves linked to the components and body processes designed to be influenced by the intake of these nutrients. On the other hand, it participates in the development of control and intervention practices on living organisms based on food. This is, for example, the case for the development of a whole set of technologies that contribute to promoting personalized and real-time monitoring and control of what is ingested or the biological materiality of an individual.
Thus, as part of my doctoral research, I observe the modes and places of deployment of this biomedicalized food culture as well as the forms of knowledge it contributes to produce. In doing so, it is necessary for me to question how it is made possible and how it can be articulated in a society characterized by the omnipresence of the media, which inform the production and circulation of knowledge as well as the creation of particular practices, constitutive of contemporary “healthy eating”. Through the exploration of this bio-medicalized food culture, I would like to ask how knowledge about bodies is produced that help define the ways in which they are understood and worked on. In doing so, I aim to identify the new norms that are then created, uniting the body and nutrition. I will conclude here with some of the critical questions that drive the ongoing research. Since biomediation marks a change in the “distribution of biomedical information and knowledge and [in] the responsibilities of individuals to seize it” (Clarke et al. 2000, p. 29), how should we reflect on contemporary bodies, the intersection of injunctions to self-responsibility and self-care and the production of knowledge that contributes to “healthy eating”?
How should we think about bodies in their relationship to food, when they are subject to a set of surveillance techniques (e.g. blood tests to assess blood sugar or cholesterol levels, mobile applications to monitor the calories ingested or expended in real time, etc.) and categorization to help produce them as “healthy” or not? In this context, how is “being healthy” (re)defined?
19.3. References
Bardini, T. (2016). Entre archéologie et écologie. Multitudes, (62), 159–168.
Brady, J., Gingras, J., and Power, E. (2012). Still hungry: A feminist perspective on food, foodwork, the body, and food studies. In Critical Perspectives in Food Studies, Doc, M., Sumner, J., and Winson, A. (eds). Oxford University Press, Don Mills, 122–135.
Clarke, A.E., Fishman, J.R., Fosket, J.R., Mamo, L., and Shim, J.K. (2000). Technosciences et nouvelle biomédicalisation : Racines occidentales, rhizomes mondiaux. Sciences sociales et santé, 18(2), 11–42.
Clarke, A.E., Shim, J.K., Mamo, L., Fosket, J.R., and Fishman, J.R. (2003). Biomedicalization: Technoscientific transformations of health, illness, and U.S. biomedicine. American Sociological Review, 68(2), 161–194.
Clarke, A.E., Mamo, L., Fosket, J.R., Fishman, J.R., and Shim, J.K. (2010). Biomedicalization: Technoscience, Health, and Illness in the U.S. Duke University Press, Durham.
Coveney, J. (2006). Food and Aging. In Foucault and Aging, Powell, J. and Wahidin, A. (eds). Nova Science Publishers, New York, 61–73. Available at: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/61167795.html.
Durocher, M. and Gauthier, M. (2018). A food blog created by and for elders: A political gesture informed by the normative injunctions to eat and age well. Interaction Design and Architecture(s) Journal, 36, 75–92.
Hall, S. (1980). Cultural studies: Two paradigms. Media, Culture & Society, 2(1), 57–72.
Hepp, A. and Tribe, K. (2013). Cultures of Mediatization. Polity, Cambridge.
Hepp, A., Hjarvard, S., and Lundby, K. (2015). Mediatization: Theorizing the interplay between media, culture and society. Media, Culture & Society, 37(2), 314–324.
Johne, M. (2017). Go with the gut – at uBiome Inc., science meets business opportunity. The Globe and Mail, 7 April. Available at: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/go-with-the-gut-at-ubiome-inc-science-meets-business-opportunity/article32676714/.
Katz, S. (2013). Active and Successful Aging. Lifestyle as a Gerontological Idea. Recherches sociologiques et anthropologiques, 44(1), 33–49.
Kim, H. (2013). Functional foods and the biomedicalisation of everyday life: A case of germinated brown rice. Sociology of Health and Illness, 35(6), 842–857.
Koç, M., Winson, A., and Sumner, J.M. (2012). Critical Perspectives in Food Studies. Oxford University Press, Don Mills.
Krotz, F. (2009). Mediatization: A concept with which to grasp media and societal change. In Mediatization: Concept, Changes, Consequences, Lundby, K. (ed.). Peter Lang Publishing, New York, 21–40.
La Presse canadienne (2016). Les fruits de mer protégeraient les aînés du déclin cognitif. La Presse canadienne, 11 May. Available at: https://www.lapresse.ca/vivre/sante/nutrition/201605/11/01-4980484-les-fruits-de-mer-protegeraient-les-aines-du-declin-cognitif.php.
Lundby, K. (2014). Mediatization of Communication. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin.
Rabinow, P. and Rose, N. (2006). Biopower Today. BioSocieties, 1, 195–217.
Scrinis, G. (2012). Nutritionism and functional foods. In The Philosophy of Food, Kaplan, D. (ed.). University of California Press, Berkeley, 269–291.
Scrinis, G. (2013). Nutritionism: The Science and Politics of Dietary Advice. Columbia University Press, New York.
University of Toronto (n.d.). Should your DNA determine what’s for dinner? University of Toronto. Available at: http://boundless.utoronto.ca/impact/should-your-dna-determine-whats-for-dinner-nutrigenomics-el-sohemy/
Chapter written by Myriam DUROCHER.
- 1 For Clarke et al. (2000), the medicalization of the social field refers to the expansion of the jurisdiction of medical practice and its authority across society, generating a new form of social control not only through the medical institution, but also through the development of a medicalized relationship with the living body.
- 2 For Clarke et al. (2010), biomedicalization is achieved through a set of co-constitutive processes: 1) the co-constitution of new knowledge, technologies, services and capital through a new biopolitical economy of medicine, health and disease; 2) the intensification of the importance given to health, particularly oriented towards ideals of improvement through technosciences and the development of increasingly personalized surveillance tools and practices; 3) the technoscientific transformations of biomedical practices where interventions for treatment or improvement are increasingly supported by technosciences; 4) the transformation of the ways in which biomedical information is produced, disseminated and used; and 5) the bodily transformations that occur from within rather than through the addition of external elements.
- 3 University of Toronto website: http://boundless.utoronto.ca/impact/should-your-dna-determine-whats-for-dinner-nutrigenomics-el-sohemy/. The University of Toronto has distributed promotional signs in the downtown area with the following question: “Should your DNA determine what’s for dinner?”
- 4 See the work of researchers in critical gerontology, such as Stephen Katz (2013) or, more specifically in relation to nutrition, Coveney (2006), who criticized the injunctions and normativities associated with so-called “successful” aging, which involves, among other things, maintaining good physical health and failing to consider the broader systemic and structural factors that can prevent an individual from aging “healthily” beyond their food intake.
- 5 It should be noted that I am exploring the development of this biomedicalized food culture informed by media theories (Hepp et al. 2015; Hepp and Tribe 2013; Lundby 2014), which focus on the co-constitution of changes that occur in both culture and the media. These theories question this interrelationship as today’s society is permeated by the omnipresence of the media, participating in the production of daily communicational practices, knowledge, norms, values and emotions that constitute our reality (Krotz 2009). The branch of media studies that analyzes mediatization processes from a socio-cultural perspective (Durocher 2017; Hepp et al. 2015) conceives that the “tightening” power of the media is exercised and (re)produced through interaction, through the communicative practices that are at the basis of the constitution of culture. Media theories therefore aim to challenge the way in which media are developed and deployed in interrelationship with culture (Hepp et al. 2015). Media here should therefore not be understood as being limited to digital technologies and the use of interactive algorithms, but includes, more broadly, any technology that enables the establishment of communicative practices as well as the production and sharing of information. It is therefore possible to include in this definition both institutional media and self-tracking applications, blogs, etc. Thus, I will prioritize the name media in italics, with reference to its Latin origin, in order to distinguish it from the name that would refer to mass media (Bardini 2016). The theories of mediatization seem promising to me to reflect on the co-development of a biomedicalized food culture and the media that inform its deployment, in light of the contemporary biopolitical context.