MEDICALIZATION OF FOOD AND TRANSFORMATION OF PEOPLE INTO MERCHANDISE: REFLECTIONS FROM MAGAZINES FOR WOMEN

Abstract

We dedicate ourselves, at first, to situate the scientific field the Food and focus of investigation: the food. We get it inserted into the world of consumption in modern societies and in conjunction with advertising, this is considered by us as a strong participant in the process of building and symbols of reproduction and changes in social-economic model, characterized by accumulation of cultural capital . Nowadays, advertising, their practices and knowledge have been studied not only as mere sales agents, but as mechanisms to establish influences and reconstruction of consumption practices. Process in which the body has a relevant role in the construction of meaning, since the food participates in the construction of the body not only by its materiality, but also in cultural and symbolic. We analyze the covers of magazines I’m More! and VIVA! More, published in 2011. From these vehicles, we propose to reflect on discourses about food and its relationship to processes of medicalization and transformation of people into a commodity in contemporary society. We discussed, first, its configuration as a genre. Then, based on discourse analysis and semiotic studies, the authors resorted to Foucault, Guimarães, Farina, Simmel and Elias for a dip in the statements on screen. Then, based on authors such as Conrad, Foucault and Maingueneau, we present our reflections on the process of medicalization that we present these speeches. Finally, we argue that consumer society requires that we also salable. We consider, as Hall, Bauman, Giddens, Marx and Lukács, this arrangement which gathers covers of women’s magazines, food and medicalization is also marked by a process of reification that turns people into commodities.