A Foucauldian Genealogical Analysis of Healthy Eating Education Materials in Ontario 1942-2015

This study examines the introduction of the Official Food Rules in 1942 and the formation of subsequent dietary self-analysis practices in Ontario curriculum and textbooks. Examination of the influences of nutrition science, Ontario education policy and politics, and Canadian health policies are combined with Foucauldian critical discourse analysis of selected classroom materials. The Grade 4 dietary self-analysis, based on the various forms of the food guide, from 1946, 1974 and 2011 are analysed and compared. Themes of truth, power and identity within this regime of truth are examined. The ordering of food in the Food Rules was a discursive event. This new structure created the pass/fail binaries of nutrition that remain active in the Healthy Eating approach. Defining the quantitative approach, and the dietary self-assessment based on it, as irrelevant to healthy eating will allow room for new pedagogies, and a new definition of healthy eating practices to develop.

Name thesis:degree_name

MHIS

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Health Information Science

Grantor dc:publisher

The University of Western Ontario

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Loughheed, Janet N

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• MacKenzie, Pamela

• Healthy Eating
• dietary self-analysis
• Foucault
• nutrition
• education
• Canada’s Food Guide

Language dc:language.iso

en_ca

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14721/27955

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uwo.scholaris.ca:20.500.14721/27955