'A healthy lifestyle might be the death of you': discourses on diet, cholesterol control and heart disease in the press and among the lay public

In Australia and other western countries, research on the relationship between dietary intake and coronary heart disease has attracted wide news media coverage. One of the most recent issues to receive media attention is the role of cholesterol control in reducing the risk of coronary heart disease. News reports on cholesterol and diet have vacillated confusingly from supporting health promotional orthodoxy in warning individuals to monitor carefully their intake of certain substances such as fats, salt and cholesterol, to questioning the validity of such dietary control. This paper presents the findings of a study investigating media coverage of and the responses of members of the lay public to recent diet and cholesterol control controversies. Analysis found that while the participants commonly articulated concern about their diet, they also expressed a high degree of cynicism both in the news media's coverage and health promotional advice on diet and cholesterol control. Respondents drew upon discourses relating to the pleasurable nature of indulging oneself in eating, but also expressed moralistic discourses concerning the need to ‘work’ at being healthy, thus juggling the dialectic of health as control and health as release. The adage that ‘everything in moderation’ was the way to live one's life, regardless of official advice concerning dietary regulation, was commonly expressed as a strategy of coping with the confusions around diet.