Social representations of the diet in patients with diabetes mellitus

Abstract

The "diet" is part of the collective’s worldview, where culture shapes the webs of significance, giving way to a collective ideology internalised in each individual, which is fully accepted, assigned and assimilated by the collective. The diabetes mellitus is a condition whose importance lies in being one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. This pathology is complex, but their struggle leads to the most basic and elemental: the "diet". Methodology: Explore the common sense in relation to "diet" in patients with diabetes mellitus, via the Theory of Social Representations (SR). Semi-structured surveys were applied to 100 patients in three units of the Mexican Institute of Social Security of the State of Mexico, to define on the basis of the diabetic patients to the "diet". Results: The term "diet" is a social construct, which builds and reinforces a social reality: poverty, inequality, and decontextualized biomedical control and public policies without social inclusive. Conclusion: The end of this research reveals the thin threads of marginalization and ignomia of our collective suffering from diabetes, expose a inequality and insecurity, perpetuating a "diet" desregionalizada inadequate, contextualized, and far from the truth.