Meaning of Nutritious Food in Policy Communication: The MBG Program in Depok City

The Free Nutritious Meal Program (MBG) is one of the Indonesian government’s strategic policies aimed at improving children’s nutritional quality and reducing stunting rates. However, the implementation of nutrition policies is influenced not only by technical nutritional standards but also by how people interpret and respond to these policies in their daily lives. Previous studies have mainly focused on health effectiveness and policy evaluation, while research examining nutrition policy as a process of communication and meaning contestation remains limited. This study aims to analyze the contestation of the meaning of “nutritious eating” between the state’s construction through policy discourse and the community’s construction through everyday social practices in the implementation of the MBG Program in Depok City. This study employed a qualitative approach using a case study method through in-depth interviews, non-participant observation, and documentation. Eleven informants consisting of students, teachers, and parents were selected purposively. Data were analyzed thematically and supported by Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to examine the relationship between policy discourse, communication practices, and people’s social experiences. The findings show that the government constructs “nutritious eating” as a technical nutrition standard based on public health indicators, while the community interprets it as food that is tasty, filling, culturally appropriate, and economically affordable. Teachers also play an important role as mediators in negotiating meaning between policy narratives and everyday consumption practices. This study identifies a Nutritional Policy–Consumption Gap between policy standards and actual food consumption practices within society. The findings suggest that the success and legitimacy of public policy are determined not only by technical policy design but also by dialogic, participatory, and contextual communication strategies between the government and the community.