Vitamin Practices and Ideologies of Health and the Body

Abstract

This article addresses people in the United States by examining beliefs and practices among people who take vitamins and supplements. The continuing rise of vitamin consumption calls for explanation given the lack of scientific consensus about the efficacy of vitamin pills in preventing disease and improving health. Taking vitamins contests biomedicine professionals and represents the choice for an alternative health practice that involves magical thinking, the emotions and sensory knowledge. Vitamins are self-medicating devices that lead to a culturally constituted experience of the self as a productive and whole person in a capitalist society. We pursue the notion of tactics to articulate the relationship between agency and structure. Vitamin practices reflect a nuanced concept of agency that shows how people navigate broader processes converging in the marketplace. Operating within this wider field, practices are transformative and lead to social change.