Ethnosemantic
Project: All about Diets
In the Health Services field, there is a problem today
with widespread miscommunication between patients and health
professionals. Each person has a unique
worldview that gives them preconceived notions and biases about the topics they
are discussing, so the words used in conversation could have completely
different meanings for the two individuals.
This creates an issue because if patients do not understand their
health, illnesses, problems, or treatment options in the same way their doctor
does, it is impossible for the medical care they receive to be entirely
effective. Ethnosemantics is a way of
studying people’s thoughts and rationalizations through their use and
understanding of language. This can help
us to understand different views held by lay people versus professionals by
breaking down a single word in their vocabulary to understand the exact
definition of that concept from their worldview. From here we can see the discrepancies
between what doctors think and what their patients think. While you cannot change how people see the
world or how they see their own personal health, recognition of these
discrepancies can help doctors to better communicate with patients and help
them to have healthier lives.
The mainstream American lay subject for this study is an
eighteen year old female student studying architectural engineering at the
University of South Florida—we will call her Jane Doe. She has lived within an hour of here for her
entire life, and her parents also grew up here.
Her chart first broke diets up into categories about why people would
have certain diets based on their lifestyle.
This first set of categories included: profession, self-esteem, medical,
and culture. She then broke down what
aspects of each of those factors might lead to specific dietary needs or
goals. For profession, this included a
need to be athletic or a specific amount of sleep required by the job while for
self-esteem, it was broken down into weight-loss or weight-gain. The medical category was broken down into
allergy, accident or illness and culture included religion, location, and
values. Clearly, it was more important
for her to define diets in terms of a “why” rather than “what” or “how”. Based on the structure of her chart, we can
assume that Doe’s personal views about diets involve reasons for dieting rather
than what foods or drinks are components of these diets.
The ethnic lay subject in this project is a twenty-two
year old graduate student at the University of South Florida studying
electrical engineering—we will call her Mary Jones. Mary Jones moved to America from her home in
Mangalore, in the southern part of India approximately two months ago. While she had family living in Riverview and
thus has been to the area a couple of times to visit them, this is the longest
amount of time she has spent in America.
When I asked her to break the idea of diets into categories, she chose
to define it by nutrients. Her
categories were carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, and junk food. Upon further breakdown, she separated
carbohydrates into Indian or non-Indian and proteins into vegetarian. As Mary continued to talk about the
categories she had made, it was clear that she was defining the idea of diets
by the food that she eats. She also
noted that if she ever wanted to lose weight she would just cut out the junk
food section, but other than that her diet consists of everything in her
chart. It is interesting that her idea
of diets is centered on what she personally eats rather than a larger concept
about what others eat.
The professional subject for this project is a twenty-one
year old student at the University of Georgia studying Nutrition and Dietetics
who works at Vitamin World—we will call her Ann Smith. She grew up in that area of Georgia, but has
also spent a considerable amount of time in the Tampa Bay area with her
family. She began her chart by breaking it
up mainly by reasons for dieting; while two of her main categories: vegetarian,
and other, are not technically reasons for dieting that is the closest way to
define her main categories. Those first
categories she chose were: weight-control diets, medical, diets, “value” diets,
other diets, and vegetarian diets. The
main ones that she gave me were weight-control, medical, and other, but she
included value diets and vegetarian diets at the last minute because she felt
they were important to add but they did not fit well into the other
categories. She also noted to me that
the first three categories we discussed are most important to her and what she
is studying because she wants to advise people on weight-loss and weight-control
diet options to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
She gave me a brief list of examples of each type of diet and said that
she could have filled pages and pages with a variety of “name brand” diets
given the right amount of time. The
examples in the chart are supposed to be a good list of common and notable
diets. The structure of her chart
clearly reflects what aspects of diets she deems important based on her
academic and career goals rather than something personal.
Jane Doe and Mary Jones had very different ideas about
diets, which is clear from simply looking at their charts. Jane’s chart was much larger and more complex
than Mary’s because hers covered a much broader scope. Jane was much more concerned with the diets
of others while Mary focused on her own diet.
This could have something to do with how American culture is so
concerned with body-image, weight-loss, and fad diets. When an American lay person thinks about
diets, their head is filled with magazine ads and pictures of diet pills and
body builders and models. This cultural
focus on diets may not be present in India since Mary did not appear to have
many outside influences in her definition of diets and her concerns were
focused on the contents and nutritional value of food rather than on the
possible reasons people might have for choosing to eat certain types of
foods. Another reason Jane may have been
more likely to have a definition that encompasses the diets of more people
could be the social media culture in America.
People are constantly sharing information about their personal lives and
daily routine; because they are frequently bombarded with mundane information
about other Americans, they might become more concerned with other people’s
lives and things such as diets.
The mainstream American lay subject and professional
subject actually had charts that were structurally, quite similar. One important thing to note is that the ideas
and connotations behind their categories because though they both categorized
diets by reasons for dieting, their reasons were based on very different understandings
of the concept. Jane Doe’s were based on
personal reasons such as self-esteem and her section of culturally-based diets
was much more extensive. This shows an
understanding that is rooted in personal concerns, even if they are not
concerns held by her but by others. Ann
Smith’s were much more straightforward and technical. In fact, her section
labeled value diets; her culturally-based section is the smallest and least
extensive. As a professional, she is not
concerned with people’s particular ideas about diets or their personal goals
causing their need to diet, but with health related concerns and specific types
of diets that people can use to attain a physically healthy lifestyle. Smith is concerned with diets in terms of
generalizations and nutritional components.
Doe on the other hand is concerned with psychological and personal
reasons that cause people to change their diet or how aspects of one’s life
such as profession, self-esteem, personal values, or location can affect
diets. This shows a more humanistic
approach to understanding diets in comparison to Smith’s medical and
comprehensive approach.
There would clearly be some issues in communication if
these individuals were to have a conversation about diets because their
perceptions of the subject are so different.
There is a huge discrepancy between Mary Jones’s and Ann Smith’s
knowledge of diets. Mary Jones thinks
about them in an individual way, focusing on her dietary needs and intake while
Smith considers them in much larger terms.
If Mary Jones came to her with a question about diets, Ann Smith would
probably apply a broader generalization to Mary and her diet, not giving her
the clarification to understand it on the individualistic level on which she
considers diets. With this
miscommunication, Mary would probably not take any advice that Ann gave her
because she would not feel that it applied to her life as an individual. While Jane Doe has a closer interpretation of
diets to Ann’s, they still do not match up.
With a focus on people’s more intimate reasons for dieting, Jane may not
be able to relate her definition to Ann’s emphasis on solely medical and health
related reasons for dieting. For
example, if there were a person eating almost no calories each day to lose
weight, Ann would say they were on a crash diet, call them unhealthy, and
advise them to change their diet to something healthier. Jane on the other hand would recognize that
they probably have self-esteem issues and may recommend counseling to help
them. In this situation Jane, a lay
person would probably be able to help this individual more than Ann, the
professional because of her differing comprehension of diets and the reasons
behind them.
Through the examination of ethnosemantic charts, we can
visually see where the problems in communication between healthcare
professionals and their patients come from.
There is an inherent difference in conception of health ideas between
those who have been professionally trained in the subject and those who have
not. Sometimes only minor
inconsistencies can cause a much greater issue that affects maintenance of a
healthy lifestyle and prevention of disease.
It is important for healthcare professionals to become aware of this so
that they can more effectively discuss such issues with patients and see better
results.
