A discourse is a discussion that people have about many different topics and the dominant discourse is the idea on these discussions that are mostly talked about and published as well as in the media. It can change depending on the culture that someone belongs to. There are dominant discourses in everyday topics and the biggest topic is what to eat and what not to eat. Doctors have opinions, nutritionist, local people and everyone who has to eat. The people who get their idea talked about in these situations are people who are considered experts. For food this would be doctors because people trust the doctors judgment seeing as the doctor is suppose to the most well informed about health. Everyone wants to eat healthy so they can continue to live and they can continue to live life without many problems. The doctors and nutritionist are suppose to be the ones who take care of finding out what is good for a human to eat and what isn’t. If your friend were to tell you that the pizza they ate made them feel a lot better than any other pizza they ever ate. This pizza was proven to be good for you and that pizza had 50 calories and 0 Trans fat. You might be skeptical of these proclaimed facts because your friend probably didn’t go to school to study the human body. However if it was displayed everywhere that pizza is better than salad because 10 Harvard professors did studies on it then people would trust their judgment.
The dominant discourse that is brought up over and over again when talking about food is the best way to eat healthy. This includes staying under 2,000 calories to make sure that no weight is gained and another idea is sticking to the food chain and following it completely to know how many servings of a particular kind of food should be consumed. Most people think that you are considered healthy when you have a wider variety of foods to eat but according to the people who are normally quoted in newspapers and articles which are again usually doctors, organic vegetables make a big difference. The biggest idea about eating healthy is how many servings of vegetables a person eats per day and where this food comes from.
The topic that is generally discussed in the dominant food discourse is not only what the food is but how the food is prepared. What seems to be the ideal form of eating is organic food grown from a garden or grown in a farm because when vegetables are grown they are also sprayed with pesticides so the food doesn’t get destroyed by any pest. Pesticides however are chemicals that shouldn’t always be consumed by humans. Another thing that is also discussed widely is the need for Americans to consume more vegetables. In the New York Times article Told to Eat It’s Vegetables, American Orders French Fries only twenty three percent of meals include vegetables whereas the amount of vegetables that are supposed to be consumed per day are nine servings. The article also states, “The number of dinners prepared at home that included a salad was 17 percent; in 1994, it was 22 percent”… “At restaurants, salads ordered as a main course at either lunch or dinner dropped by half since 1989, to a mere 5 percent (Severson 3).” The quote shows evidence that people are consuming less vegetables because it is seen as a pain and difficult to make. The number has dropped since 1994 even though more stories are coming out about the idea of healthy food and even though more books are being published about the way that food can help a person’s body.
The fact that many people see eating fruits and vegetables as a challenge is the biggest problem among trying to get people to eat healthier. Vegetables that are organic are either very expensive or hard to find and usually not in poorer neighborhoods because they can’t be afforded however this is where they should be because people in poorer neighborhoods don’t eat well. Vegetables are also seen as a challenge because they are harder to cook them something you can throw on a grill and wait. Making vegetables that taste good is seen to be one of the bigger blockades stopping people from eating healthy. The solution that is being pushed toward is making these foods less expensive. If people see that these are less expensive they might get ordered more at restaurants and might be bought more often to be cooked at home.
Food is now seen as a medicine and a poison. Many people such as Dr. Maring who is a gynecologist said in reference to his fruits and vegetables, “Since it’s mine, I made the rules — all organic.” In the article Doctors Orders: Eat Well to Be Well doctors are referenced to eat food that are not good for them because it is usually junk food and even though doctors know a lot about the kinds of foods that should be consumed they still follow the dominant discourse of food that is “normal” to eat. Even people without availability because of money or lack of organic food markets agree that the idea of healthy are fruits and vegetables and this is shown in the article Fresh Vegetables Where Fast Food Reigns however these aren’t the people that are mentioned in most articles. Even though many of the people that don’t eat healthy have less money than people who do eat healthy, the voices of these people are not heard. This is most likely because people would not like to hear about what someone who isn’t considered healthy eats, everyone is turning to doctors to find out what should be consumed. In fact the dominant discourses come from the doctors because people believe what they say seeing as they went to school to study about these topics.
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