IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v105y2014icp76-83.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

“But we're not hypochondriacs”: The changing shape of gluten-free dieting and the contested illness experience

Author

Listed:
  • Moore, Lauren Renée

Abstract

“Gluten free” exploded onto the American foodscape in recent years: as of January 2013, 30 percent of U.S. adults reported reducing or eliminating gluten in their diets. How do individuals participate in the expansion of gluten-free dieting, and what are the implications of that expansion? This article is based on 31 in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted between May and October 2012 with gluten-free and -restricted persons. I identify three interrelated factors contributing to the expansion of gluten-free dieting among non-celiacs. Participants broaden the lay understanding of gluten-related disorders, undermine biomedical authority, and diagnose others. Such participant-driven change, termed self-ascriptive looping, is one factor in the diet's rapid popularization. I show how participants question the doctor–patient relationship and increase social contestability for other dieters. My findings challenge previous work on contested illness and suggest food intolerances may require a reconceptualization of contested illness experience.

Suggested Citation

  • Moore, Lauren Renée, 2014. "“But we're not hypochondriacs”: The changing shape of gluten-free dieting and the contested illness experience," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 76-83.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:105:y:2014:i:c:p:76-83
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.01.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953614000343
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.01.009?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dumit, Joseph, 2006. "Illnesses you have to fight to get: Facts as forces in uncertain, emergent illnesses," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(3), pages 577-590, February.
    2. Nelson, Mia & Ogden, Jane, 2008. "An exploration of food intolerance in the primary care setting: The general practitioner's experience," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(6), pages 1038-1045, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Locock, Louise & Nettleton, Sarah & Kirkpatrick, Susan & Ryan, Sara & Ziebland, Sue, 2016. "‘I knew before I was told’: Breaches, cues and clues in the diagnostic assemblage," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 85-92.
    2. Trundle, Catherine, 2011. "Biopolitical endpoints: Diagnosing a deserving British nuclear test veteran," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(6), pages 882-888, September.
    3. Phillips, Tarryn, 2012. "Repressive authenticity in the quest for legitimacy: Surveillance and the contested illness lawsuit," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(10), pages 1762-1768.
    4. Schaepe, Karen Sue, 2011. "Bad news and first impressions: Patient and family caregiver accounts of learning the cancer diagnosis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(6), pages 912-921, September.
    5. Vololona Rabeharisoa & Michel Callon & Angela Marques Filipe & João Arriscado Nunes & Florence Paterson & Frédéric Vergnaud, 2012. "The dynamics of causes and conditions: the rareness of diseases in French and Portuguese patients' organizations' engagement in research," CSI Working Papers Series 026, Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation (CSI), Mines ParisTech.
    6. Madeleine Akrich, 2010. "From Communities of Practice to Epistemic Communities: Health Mobilizations on the Internet," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 15(2), pages 116-132, May.
    7. Brian Walitt & Richard L Nahin & Robert S Katz & Martin J Bergman & Frederick Wolfe, 2015. "The Prevalence and Characteristics of Fibromyalgia in the 2012 National Health Interview Survey," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-16, September.
    8. Claire Edwards & Etaoine Howlett & Madeleine Akrich & Vololona Rabeharisoa, 2012. "Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in France and Ireland: parents' groups' scientific and political framing of an unsettled condition," CSI Working Papers Series 024, Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation (CSI), Mines ParisTech.
    9. Cohn, Simon & Dyson, Clare & Wessely, S., 2008. "Early accounts of Gulf War illness and the construction of narratives in UK service personnel," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(11), pages 1641-1649, December.
    10. Vololona Rabeharisoa & Orla O'Donovan, 2013. "‘Europe of patients, Europe for patients’: the Europeanization of healthcare policies by European patients’ organizations," CSI Working Papers Series 030, Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation (CSI), Mines ParisTech.
    11. Kuchinskaya, Olga & Parker, Lisa S., 2018. "‘Recurrent losers unite’: Online forums, evidence-based activism, and pregnancy loss," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 74-80.
    12. Wild, Cervantée & MacLean, Alice & Nettleton, Sarah & Hunt, Kate & Ziebland, Sue, 2024. "The double invisibility of Long Covid in children," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 347(C).
    13. Jutel, Annemarie, 2010. "Framing disease: The example of female hypoactive sexual desire disorder," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(7), pages 1084-1090, April.
    14. Greco, Monica, 2012. "The classification and nomenclature of ‘medically unexplained symptoms’: Conflict, performativity and critique," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(12), pages 2362-2369.
    15. Rotolo, Thomas & Lengefeld, Michael, 2020. "Clearing the cobwebs: An analysis of the timing of youth concussion legislation in U.S. states," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    16. Rivera-Cuadrado, Wayne, 2023. "Healthcare practitioners’ construction of occupational risk during the COVID-19 pandemic," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 331(C).
    17. Bojovic, Neva & Geiger, Susi, 2023. "Epistemic and institutional recognition work in changing conditions of social visibility: Anosmia's journey from the shadows to the spotlight," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 338(C).
    18. Groenevelt, I.P.(Irene) & de Boer, M.L.(Marjolein), 2023. "Contesting misrecognition online: Experiences of epistemic in/justice by vloggers with contested illnesses," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 327(C).
    19. Boersma, Jolanda J. & Brown, Patrick, 2020. "The tired hero and her (il)legitimation: Reworking Parsons to analyse experiences of burnout within the Dutch employment system and lifeworld," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    20. Roth, Phillip H. & Gadebusch-Bondio, Mariacarla, 2022. "The contested meaning of “long COVID” – Patients, doctors, and the politics of subjective evidence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:105:y:2014:i:c:p:76-83. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.