Good for ‘You’: Generic and Individual Healthy Eating Advice in Family Mealtimes

Abstract

Healthy eating is one of the main concerns for health organizations in the UK, and has been widely promoted in recent decades. Yet despite the amount of nutritional information available, levels of obesity, heart disease and other food-related diseases remain high. Existing research in this area often uses individual accounts of consumption to examine the reasons why people may not be eating ‘healthily’. An alternative way to approach this issue is to examine how healthy eating advice is constructed and used in everyday interaction. This research uses tape-recorded family mealtimes to examine instances where nutritional advice is embedded and managed in conversational activities. A distinction between generic and individually focused healthy eating talk is illustrated, and the implications for further research are discussed.