The rise of nutritionism and decline of nutritional health in Nauru

Since the Age of Enlightenment, the science and technologies of nutrition have influenced what we eat, how we eat, how we experience food, the role of food in society, and ultimately our health. Diet-related non-communicable diseases (DR-NCDs) have simultaneously proliferated around the world and especially in the Asia-Pacific region. Nations such as Nauru have some of the highest rates of DR-NCDs in the world, despite a long history of nutritional advice and intervention. In a context of improving scientific knowledge over the past century, why would DR-NCDs have continued to advance? The concept of ‘nutritionism’ provides a new way into thinking about this contradiction, as it challenges us to make sense of the work nutritional science does beyond changing the nutrients we ingest. Applying this concept to the Nauruan case shows how nutritional science can undermine other cultures’ ways of engaging with food linguistically, socially and also experientially. It exposes the moral values that infuse nutritional science and the way they are experienced by local communities. It also shows how the ideology of nutritional science can be taken up more readily than specific dietary advice and be mobilized by others seeking to encourage profitable but nutritionally-unhealthy dietary practices.