Household Food Strategies and the Reframing of Ways of Understanding Dietary Practices

Abstract

While the use of households as a study focus is not a new concept in nutrition research, recent sociological literature has highlighted methodological advances in household strategy research that deserve attention. This article introduces and examines the conceptual relevance and analytical scope of household food strategies (HFS) research. People's household food strategies and dietary practices go together as do legs and walking, and yet to listen to public commentary on, for example, the current public health cause célèbre- the childhood obesity epidemic- we hear little, if any, balanced discussion of domestic food provisioning work, but much ideological posturing re parental responsibility, resisting the temptation of the abundance of fast food in our environment, and the importance of cooking from scratch. Using HFS as a unit of analysis highlights the process of integrating two critical sets of factors: household resources and preferences on the one hand, and the broader social and cultural shaping of dietary practices on the other. Such an approach has the advantage of avoiding an overemphasis on agency. Specifically, this article outlines a search for a coherent and integrated theoretical and methodological framework suited to studying households and dietary practices under circumstances of resource constraint and rapid social or political change. Developments in cultural sociology and anthropology, particularly, have much to offer a research agenda to support contemporary food and nutrition policy making in a post-modern world.