Food, Health and the Body: A Biosemiotic Approach to Contemporary Eating Habits

A number of food myths have increasingly captured the media agenda in recent years, reinforcing, but also distorting, the link between nutrition and health. Narratives and paradigms establishing connections between particular elements in the composition of food and even specific techniques used to produce it, on the one hand, and bodily health, on the other hand, have emerged and spread, influencing people’s perceptions of edibility and consumption behaviours. This paper explores such issues by making reference to existing literature in the field and analysing relevant examples of media discourses on health-related eating habits, with specific regard to the opposition between technologically modified food and organic products. Within this framework, specific attention is devoted to the conception of eating as an “embodied experience” and the understanding of the bodily dimension itself.