2024/07/03 by Caroline Owens · 1 voice
Health Professions · #Food Security and Health in Diverse Populations #Obesity and Health Practices #Dietetics, Nutrition, and Education
paper · doi:10.1080/00187259.2024.2360483
openalex publication_date 2024/07/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
‘Food is Medicine’ initiatives, such as Produce Prescriptions (PRx), have garnered attention from public health and medical communities for their potential to address both food insecurity and chronic diseases. PRx programs strategically position food within a medicalized framework as a salutary agent of treatment, aligned with broader social prescribing movements. However, little scholarship has been conducted on the social and relational dynamics inherent within these interventions. Drawing from 14 months of ethnographically-grounded research, which involved participant observation and semi-structured interviews, I examine the interplay of structural determinants and relationality in people’s experiences of a PRx initiative. By employing these theoretical frameworks, I elucidate how food is variably perceived and experienced as etiological or therapeutic within the medicalized paradigm of PRx. I also highlight the complex ways in which food intersects with health, well-being, and broader social assemblages in people’s lives. In so doing, I contribute to vibrant discussions surrounding nutritional and health equity, and advocate for a reevaluation of conventional biomedical approaches to food interventions in favor of more holistic, socially embedded practices.