The Poison is in the Dose
The French Paradox, the Healthy Drinker, and the Medicalization of Virtue

Author: Mudry, Jessica

Source: Food, Culture and Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, Volume 13, Number 1, March 2010 , pp. 91-114(24)

Publisher: Berg Publishers

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Abstract:

In this paper I examine the role of wine within the “French Paradox” and the US media and government's response to that role. I recount the “discovery” of wine's ability to reduce the incidence of heart disease among a control group of French people, and how scientific research on wine proliferated as scientists attempted to reduce wine to its active ingredients. In this process, discourses of science and quantification create rational and ethical reasons to drink wine. In the process of quantification, wine is defined as a medicalized component of a healthy diet, and those who drink wine become medicalized patients. Knowing the line between “moderate” and “excessive” drinking becomes a mathematical calculation, and this calculation determines whether or not one is healthy. Such a move normalizes a scientific attitude toward public life by making the restrained, rational and numerate drinker into the “healthy” and ethical drinker.

Keywords: FRENCH PARADOX; MEDICALIZATION; WINE; MEDITERRANEAN DIET; QUANTIFICATION OF HEALTH; DISCOURSES OF SCIENCE

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2752/175174410X12549021368144

Publication date: 2010-03-01

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Formerly, The Journal for the Study of Food and Society (ISSN: 1528-9796). Click here to see all previous issues.
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