6533b7d4fe1ef96bd12624fb

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Le repas à l'hôpital et ses enjeux identitaires

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International audience; The pleasure of meal’s sharing is very important for French consumers.Indeed, pleasure is explicitly claimed and quoted as an inherent dimension of anymeal. So, pleasure participates in the food balance and is a necessary component ofsociability.With this inmind, pleasure and health are not contrary, but closely linked.Nevertheless, in hospitals, food seems to be reduced to the ingestion of nutrients,and the meal’s sharing is not considered. However, the commensal context has aninfluence on the patient’s consumption (Hartwell and al. 2013). Based on this report,we led an investigation in several hospital departments to rethink themeal’s care ofhospitals to fight against under–nutrition. Thanks to video recordings realized in anaturel context of consumption at hospital, we intended to shed new light on theimportance of sociability during meals at hospital. In order to do so, we collectedand analyzed a video corpus of interactions recordings between nurse’s aides andpatients during themeal service.We focused on sequences of interaction wherethe participants make reference to food, either during the meal presentation madeby nurse’s aide, or when the meal was served.We noted the centrality of thesesequences in the process of patients’ identity building. Indeed, the patient is notonly a patient: his history, his motivations, his habits make him a unique person.Nevertheless, the patient at hospital is often reduced to his status of a sick personand to his disease, while the plurality of the identities is not considered. Throughthe analysis of relevant extracts, this paper addresses the crucial issue of eatingpleasure and identity in such an eating experience.