Can nutrition be packaged and sold? The contradictions of a development policy debate

• There is intense debate within global nutrition policy regarding the role of the private sector.
• Private sector involvement is founded in logics of medicalization and marketization.
• Case studies show how these logics lead to contradictions in real-world programs.
• Research and advocacy should examine the tensions in nutrition policy discourse.

Within the global nutrition policy community, there is an intense debate regarding the role of the private sector. Private sector advocates argue that market-based approaches and public–private partnerships can deliver nutrition in ways that are scalable, measurable, and sustainable. To support their position, advocates draw on two logics: ‘medicalization’, a focus on discrete food treatments and their scientific evaluation; and ‘marketization’, an assertion that businesses provide sustainable solutions and that poor people should purchase nutrition through markets. Opponents have countered that medicalization and marketization largely serve private interests and distract from the underlying social and political causes of undernutrition. Yet, rather than providing a coherent policy project, medicalization and marketization lead to contradictions when they are put into practice. Two examples of market-based distribution of nutrition products highlight how these projects can fail to achieve their goal of reducing undernutrition while creating commercially-viable business models. Recognizing the contradictions within and between medicalization and marketization allows for a better understanding of the policy process in global nutrition, and draws attention to the strategies through which actors seek to stabilize policy agendas. Researchers and practitioners can use these contradictions to highlight alternative approaches that address the social causes of undernutrition.