From Unhealthy Satiety to Health-Oriented Eating: Narratives of the Mediterranean Diet, Managing a Chronic Illness

Abstract

Purpose

The chapter is an auto-ethnographic account of the self-management of a chronic illness within the context of a participatory research project on Mediterranean Diet (MD). A group of Italian women with type 2 diabetes is following a non-medical, personal interpretation of the Mediterranean-style diet. The research account is preceded by a critical appraisal of the scientific narratives of the MD.

Methodology/approach

Analysis of epidemiological research on MD examines some methodological aspects of gender blindness in its scientific approach. The ethnography concerns self-management of MD diet and redefinition of gender relations.

Findings

MD is analyzed as a case of transplantation of yesterday’s cultural and social capitals of the peasant classes, to today’s discourses on food considered as appropriate for affluent people suffering from satiety diseases. The ethnography highlights gender aspects of biographical work, examining in particular a “conversion” dietary model.

Research limitations

The ethnography must be amplified to include women and men from different social classes with various Mediterranean cooking habits, and family and gender patterns.

Practical implications

The chapter highlights cultural processes for women’s empowerment in self-managing type 2 diabetes.

Originality/value

This chapter may represent a seminal sociological work on chronic illness, gender and food studies in one of the “native” contexts of the Mediterranean-style diet.

Citation

Bimbi, F. (2016), "From Unhealthy Satiety to Health-Oriented Eating: Narratives of the Mediterranean Diet, Managing a Chronic Illness", Gender and Food: From Production to Consumption and After (Advances in Gender Research, Vol. 22), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 89-115. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1529-212620160000022015