Browsing by Author "Järvinen, Saraleena"

In the 1950s, the Finnish diet was still monotonous and scarce, but at the same time sugar, butter and wheat consumption skyrocketed, which resulted in new public health nutrition concerns. Public health nutrition recommendations and nutrition policy practices focused on households and families where the mother was expected to take care of the nutritional status of the family. This master’s thesis seeks to examine how the nutrition promotion was constructed in Finnish Kotiliesi-magazine in the 1950s. The magazine is seen as a setting for nutrition promotion where mothers were educated to maintain the nutrition and health of the family within the broader cause to improve public health. The data was collected from Kotiliesi-magazines from 1950 to 1959 and consisted of all nutrition promotion-related articles (n=235). The qualitative analysis of the data was done by constructing nutrition promotion to different themes based on nutritional knowledge and practical nutrition counselling. Nutrition promotion was analysed using the Foucauldian governmentality framework that combines the knowledge concerning public health, nutrition counselling and individual food behaviour. Category-analysis was used to analyse how housewife’s subjectivity was constructed in the data. Through nutrition promotion, Kotiliesi aimed to improve public health nutrition by maintaining its strengths and preventing its weaknesses. Dietary advice and nutrition counselling were based on a food circle which provided a model for the daily energy intake and protective nutrients. Maintaining adequate vitamin intake throughout the year was an important theme of the promotion. Nutritional significance of regular mealtimes was also strongly emphasised in nutrition promotion. Practical nutrition counselling focused on combining nutrition and house-keeping and educating housewives to nutritionally proper cooking and food preservation. Kotiliesi created a moral image of a proper housewife who takes care of the nutrition and well-being of the family. The study sees the magazine’s nutrition promotion as a form of bio-power that sought to improve public health through self-governance techniques. This study provides new insights into the nutritional challenges of Finnish households in the 1950s and studies nutrition promotion in Finnish family households.