Nutrition in the Relations between Society and Government and its Evolution[La nutrition dans l'évolution des relations société-pouvoirs publics]

Public actions concerning nutrition, which involve both food and physical activity, have been observed over the centuries. Following a Foucauldian approach, our research question focuses on the records of current nutritional policies. We specifically tried to understand how the relations of power have been rationalized and evolved in the European and particularly French public nutritional actions, from the Medieval West until the beginning of the 21th century. This qualitative analysis examines the evolutions of government's techniques of power, practices adopted by the governed and prescriptions set out between individuals in the field of nutrition. According to our findings the public action has been using food as a target to government's changing objects since the Middle Ages. The rationalization of public interventions and private practices on the question of nutrition have been evolving over time. Furthermore the variation of policy intensity and its supporting factors is neither linear nor cumulative.