Everyday Food Consumption Research Articles

The logic of choice and the logic of care: conceptualising ethics within everyday food consumption practices

The choosing consumer has been a prominent figure within consumption research, alternatively celebrated as enabling the expression of lifestyles and tastes or criticised for overlooking consumers as embedded in interconnected mundane practices. While sociologically oriented consumption research has explored the multiplicity of consumer roles beyond ‘chooser’, the figure of the choosing consumer persists in many research streams and in our shared cultural imagination. This article joins previous research on the ethics of consumption that has explored tensions between choosing and relational consumers. It does so by introducing the logic of choice and the logic of care to consumption research. Developed by Annemarie Mol (2008), these logics can be seen as ideal types representing contrasting styles of navigating decision-making, ethics, and questions of the good life. The logic of care emphasises attentive doings that aim to improve conditions in specific situations, seeking moderation rather than control, whereas the logic of choice starts out from sovereign individuals making clear-cut decisions. Using examples from a research project on everyday meat consumption practices, we develop a conceptualisation of the central dimensions of these logics within food consumption. The logics of choice and care enact particular worlds and ways of being in them, bringing forth the ontological politics of consumption. Consequently, we advocate for cultivating care in the world of consumption currently dominated by choice, since it enacts a more merciful framing of ethical consumption, emphasising our shared responsibility for ‘as well as possible’ relations without tipping over into guilt.

Effects of the DAGIS randomized controlled trial on home environment and children’s food consumption according to the degree of implementation

BackgroundCombining process evaluation data with effectiveness data and examining the possible mediators of intervention effects elicits valuable knowledge about how and for whom these interventions are effective. The aim of this study was to examine whether the parental degree of implementation (DOI) of a home-involving preschool intervention affected children’s food consumption via home mediators.MethodsThe five-month Increased Health and Wellbeing in Preschools (DAGIS) intervention involved 476 participating children aged 3–6 years and was conducted in 2017–2018. Parents reported children’s food consumption (g/day) outside childcare hours, the availability of foods at home, role modelling of food consumption, and the norms related to food consumption. In addition, parents reported the extent to which they had implemented the intervention program at home. Mediation analyses were conducted to examine the effect of low and high DOI compared to control group on the change in children’s consumption of fruit and vegetables (FV), sugary everyday foods, sugary treats, and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) via food availability in the home, parental role modelling and parental norms.ResultsCompared to the control group, there was a direct effect of a high DOI on diminishing consumption of SSB (B -27.71, 95% CI -49.05, -4.80). No indirect effects were detected. In the high DOI group, a change in parental norm was associated with increased FV consumption showing an indirect effect (B 4.31, 95% CI 0.23, 10.59). In the low DOI group, there was an indirect effect via decreased food availability leading to decreased sugary everyday food consumption (B -2.17, 95% CI -5.09, -0.09).ConclusionsCombining process evaluation and effectiveness data revealed a decrease in children’s SSB consumption only in the high DOI group, as well as indirect effects on children’s consumption of FV and sugary everyday foods. In order to gain more intervention effects, further studies are required in order to examine parental facilitators and barriers to the implementation of interventions and how to impact effectively the determinants of the targeted behavior.Trial registrationISRCTN57165350 (8 January, 2015).

European food quality schemes in everyday food consumption: An exploration of sayings and doings through pragmatic regimes of engagement

While European consumers generally support the principles underpinning Food Quality Schemes (FQS) sales of certified products remain modest. This phenomenon is known as ‘attitude-behaviour gap’ and considerable scholarly and policy efforts have been geared towards ‘filling’ or ‘bridging’ the gap. This study aims at casting new light on this ‘discrepancy’ between consumers' sayings and doings through a study of everyday food practices connected to FQS. We used a qualitative, multi-method research design comprising extensive ethnographic fieldwork data, gathered from 41 households across seven European countries, including interviews, walk-along tours, and food diaries, in order to understand consumers' perceptions of FQS in relation to their everyday food consumption practices. Building on convention theory and Thévenot's work, we showed that food practices can be understood through different ‘regimes of engagement’, namely different ways of thinking and behaving, following different logics corresponding to varying levels of knowledge and interest. We thus argue that the ‘attitude-behaviour gap’ should be reconceptualised as the co-existence of multiple regimes of engagement, namely a dynamic and always evolving process of adjustment through which consumers understand and engage with FQS in everyday food practices.

Disposable but indispensable: The role of packaging in everyday food consumption

ABSTRACT Consumers nowadays usually dispose of food packaging after a single use. As the amount of packaging waste increases, it is of the utmost importance to encourage its reduction. Whereas most previous studies have focused on packaging in practices related to supermarkets, we analyse its role in food consumption beyond the realm of shopping. Rooted in practice theories, we conceptually frame packaging as an integral material element that is unconsciously used in daily food consumption. To explore this idea, we collected qualitative data from 26 consumers in Berlin, Germany, combining food diaries and interviews. Our results illustrate that disposable packaging is entangled in many food consumption practices in multiple ways. It is a multifaceted object that saves time and space while facilitating consumption, making it difficult for consumers to sidestep. Based on these insights, we derive recommendations for a shift towards packaging waste prevention.

Towards a circular economy in food consumption: Food waste reduction practices as ethical work

This article explores the transition towards a circular economy in the context of household food waste practices. The research concerning the circular economy has mainly focused on engineering or the processes of production, manufacturing, business and industry. However, the transition towards a circular economy requires, in addition to new technologies, infrastructures and innovations, a societal change and a change in everyday practices. In this article, we address this by examining the everyday practices of food waste reduction in households as ethical work. We claim that the intertwined practices, institutions and policies of the circular economy create moral categories and responsibilities in everyday food consumption. Thus, the transition towards circular economy requires everyday ethical work carried out by consumers. However, our analysis also brings out some possible challenges related to this transition that has not yet been accomplished. Our research materials consist of 26 food waste diaries collected from Finnish households and participant observation in 4 leftover cooking workshops organized with the Finnish Martha organization. We adapt Michel Foucault’s conception of ethics, focusing on the constitution of ethical subjectivity in food waste practices. Moreover, we utilize practice theoretical approach that has been widely used in food waste and sustainable consumption studies and connect it with Foucault’s theory. Our results suggest that in order to understand the circular economy as a moral economy, it is crucial to note the moral complexity of everyday life that results from partly contradictory ethical sensitivities and practices.

Dominion, Stewardship and Reconciliation in the Accounts of Ordinary People Eating Animals

Despite the growing popularity of vegetarian foods and diets, the vast majority of people in North America and other parts of the affluent world still eat meat. This article explores what ordinary people think about eating animals and how they navigate the ethical questions inherent in that praxis. Drawing from interviews with 24 people living in Ottawa, Canada, the study shows how the concepts of dominion, stewardship and reconciliation manifest in the everyday lives of ordinary people as models for human relations with nonhuman others and the environment. These ideas resonate in the lives of ordinary people, both religious and nonreligious, and entwine as people try to make sense of how to live with the fact that their everyday food consumption causes suffering and harm. This study shows that in the context of everyday life, dominion, stewardship and reconciliation are not alternative views, but connected to each other, and serve different purposes. The study highlights a need for analyses that constitute practical ways to renew the broken relationships within creation and which incorporate nonreligious people into the scope of analyses that focus on the relationships between humans and nonhuman creation.

A cross-disciplinary mixed-method approach to understand how food retail environment transformations influence food choice and intake among the urban poor: Experiences from Vietnam

Nutrition insecurity among urban poor in modernizing Asian metropolises is a critical issue. It is well recognized that in urban Asia the poor are food insecure. Across Asia the food retail environment is transforming rapidly, in which supermarkets increasingly replace traditional food vending, like markets and street vendors that the urban poor depend upon. The question is, how these transformations impact the diets of the urban poor? What drives their food choice? What are their daily shopping practices and how does that affect their dietary intake? To investigate this, we developed a cross-disciplinary nutrition and social practices study with a sequential quantitative-qualitative mixed-method design. Building on empirical evidence from Hanoi, Vietnam, the study links (i) food choice and measured dietary intake, with (ii) food retail environment, through (iii) food shopping practices and preferences of 400 women of reproductive age within the context of (iv) their transformative urban lifestyles. Methods included are a retail census with GPS coordinates to map the food retail environment, a household survey, a 24-h diet recall, multi-generation household interviews and shopping trips. We demonstrate that integrated sociological and nutritional perspectives are productive in rapidly generating evidence to comprehend the complex trade-offs between food safety and nutrition in everyday food consumption practices. We describe and reflect on our theoretical mix of dietary intake and social practices research, and our holistic mixed method approach which besides combining quantitative and qualitative methods, also voices the urban poor first hand.

Living and Dealing with Food in an Affluent Society—A Case for the Study of Lived (Non)Religion

Significant changes have been taking place in the field of the sociology of religion in the last few decades, which challenge researchers to rethink this scholarly field. This article suggests that a great deal could be learned about the current dilemmas within this field through research that explores the moral underpinnings of everyday food consumption within contemporary society that is characterized by abundance. More specifically, the article proposes that everyday food consumption and everyday ethics provide unique opportunities to transcend and surpass crucial distinctions within social sciences in a way that can feed the sociological imagination in relation to research on lived (non)religion. Drawing on examples from research on food consumption in the nonreligious context and at the individual, discursive and institutional levels, this study shows how the everyday ethics of food consumption can serve as a point of departure for sociological research, which could help researchers to understand the currents of lived religion and nonreligion in a way that evades the idea of religion as a certain set of practices or beliefs, or as a specific religious affiliation. This research would enable the study of issues such as practices, beliefs, meanings and belonging, as well as distancing, withdrawal, and indifference.

Fluidity of places in everyday food consumption: Introducing snackscapes

AbstractSnack consumption encompasses the repetitive habits of consumers in various everyday life spaces. Despite the pervasiveness of snack consumption worldwide, the phenomenon of snacking has not been given extensive attention, unlike other areas of food consumption research. Yet, snacking shows certain distinctive features, such as fluidity of places. This study leans on foodscape literature and introduces the concept of snackscape, which enables us to showcase the multiplicity of places in snacking culture. While prior foodscape studies are located in certain tangible places, such as urban surroundings, festival sites or particular geographical areas, snackscapes demonstrate how snacks may be consumed, for instance, on the move from one place to another, or in a variety of places that are not part of one's ordinary routines, such as on a picnic or a holiday trip to a foreign country. The findings show how places of habitual snack consumption vary from time to time—or are even on the move. This is a powerful demonstration of how a routine‐like consumption practice takes place in everyday life. This study also highlights important consumer policy issues, especially in regard to young consumers and their snacking habits. Thereby, the study brings forward the agentic capacity of snackscapes having implications on engaging in healthier snack consumption.

What is Food Without Love? The Micro-politics of Food Practices Among South Asians in Britain, India, and Pakistan

This article draws on Morgan’s theorisation of family life as consisting of political, moral, and emotional economies to examine the interplay of women’s control over resources, gender norms, and expectations of intimacy in the context of household food consumption. The research that informs the article focuses on findings from 84 interviews with two South Asian groups: Pakistani Muslim and Gujarati Hindu women with at least one dependent child and from a variety of occupations and household compositions. In examining everyday food consumption, the research demonstrates how gender hierarchies are reproduced by parallel, mutually reinforcing, political, moral, and emotional economies. The women in the study sometimes struggled to subvert gender oppression and negotiate more powerful positions within the household through food management and/or employing manipulative and deceptive tactics. The article argues that, while access to economic resources is important if women are to achieve desirable food and nutritional outcomes, it is not in itself sufficient to meet this aim. Instead, the interplay of resources, gender norms, and conjugal relations are central to household food consumption.

NAFASS: Fluctuation spectroscopy and the Prony spectrum for description of multi-frequency signals in complex systems

In this paper, we essentially modernize the NAFASS (Non-orthogonal Amplitude Frequency Analysis of the Smoothed Signals) approach suggested earlier. Actually, we solved two important problems: (a) new and effective algorithm was proposed and (b) we proved that the segment of the Prony spectrum could be used as the fitting function for description of the desired frequency spectrum. These two basic elements open an alternative way for creation of the fluctuation spectroscopy when the segment of the Fourier series can fit any random signal with trend but the dispersion spectrum of the Fourier series ω0·k(ω0≡2π/T)⇒Ωk(k=0,1,2,...,K−1) is replaced by the specific dispersion law Ωk calculated with the help of original algorithm described below. It implies that any finite signal will have a compact amplitude-frequency response (AFR), where the number of the modes is much less in comparison with the number of data points (K << N). The NAFASS approach can be applicable for quantitative description of a wide set of random signals/fluctuations and allows one to compare them with each other based on one general platform. As the first example, we considered economic data and compare 30-years world prices for meat (beef, chicken, lamb and pork) entering as the basic components to every-day food consumption. These data were taken from the official site http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/. We fitted these random functions with the high accuracy and calculated the desired “amplitude-frequency” response for these random price fluctuations. The calculated distribution of the amplitudes (Ack, Ask) and frequency spectrum Ωk (k = 0, 1,…, K−1) allows one to compress initial data (K (number of modes) << N (number of data points), N/K ≅ 20–40) and receive an additional information for their comparison with each other. As the second example, we considered the transcendental/irrational numbers description in the frame of the proposed NAFASS approach, as well. This possibility was demonstrated on the quantitative description of the transcendental number π = 3.1415926535897932…, containing initially 6⋅104 digits. The results obtained for the second type of data can be useful for cryptography purposes. We do believe that the NAFASS approach can be widely used for creation of the new metrological standards based on comparison of different test fluctuations with the fluctuations registered from the pattern equipment. Apart from this obvious application, the NAFASS approach can be applicable for description of different nonlinear random signals containing the hidden beatings in radioelectronics and acoustics.

Proper Food and a Tight Budget

Much attention has been devoted in recent years to issues of food and health in childhood. Being a parent today implies exposure to multiple discourses concerning food and health and how best to bring up one's child. In this study, parents from German and Swedish families with low socio-economic status took part in qualitative studies to examine issues of food in relation to health. The findings suggest that eating habits are influenced by a number of factors. In everyday food consumption, the ideal of proper, healthy food is challenged by time and financial restrains and by individual tastes. A comparison of confectionery versus fruit reveals that the consumption of these eatables is connected to different social contexts and to different sets of values. While there is a tendency to categorize certain groups as less responsible and more problematic, we argue that for the successful development of a health program it is crucial to start by considering structural factors and social inequality and then to take advantage of people's own resources, and work for the active participation of those involved.

Conflicting values of ethical consumption in diverse worlds – A cultural approach

This paper examines the plurality of ethical consumption and aims to illustrate how consumers cope with its complexity in the context of everyday food consumption. This study seeks to outline the tensions that consumers inevitably face when pursuing ethical choices and to shed light on the various ways in which they solve these tensions in the rhythms of everyday life. The research applies Boltanski and Thévenot's theory of orders of worth as an interpretive framework. The research data has been collected from Finnish online discussion forums in which consumers debate various aspects of ethical food consumption. The analysis indicates that the participants in the discussions recognize various understandings of ethical consumption that may be accompanied by insecurities about the ‘right’ ones. However, the research suggests that consumers are able to solve fundamental tensions in ethical food consumption by carrying out different types of practices.

PERBEDAAN ASUPAN ENERGI DAN PROTEIN PADA SIANG HARI ANTARA ANAK TAMAN KANAN-KANAK DI SEKOLAH DENGAN MODEL SCHOOL FEEDING DAN NON SCHOOL FEEDING

Background: Kindergarten (TK) is the beginning in introducing a child with a social environment outside the family. Kindergarten-age children is going through a relatively rapid growth and is a group vulnerable to nutritional problems especially energy and protein deficiency. Nutrition got by children in everyday food consumption has a big role for the children. Food facility (School feeding) is expected to be able to meet the nutritional needs of children that consist of morning snack, lunch and afternoon snack. The aim of this study is to determine the differences of energy and protein intakes during the day of kindergarten students at school with school feeding and non-school feeding model in Blimbing, Sukoharjo, Central Java. Method: This was a quasi experimental research design. Numbers of the study subjects consist of 38 5-7 years old kindergarten students from schools with school feeding and non-school feeding. Research tools used is 24-hour recall form. Data analysis used independent t-test to determine differences in the energy and protein intakes. Results: The consumption average of energy during the day (7.30 am-03.30 pm) of the kindergarten children with school feeding and non-school feeding a model is 572,5 and 640,5 kcal. While the average consumption of protein during the day (7.30 am-03.30 pm) in kindergarten children with school feeding and non-school feeding a model was 20,3 and 19,3 gr. Conclusion: There was no difference of the energy and protein intakes during the day (p&gt; 0.05) between the two types of the kindergarten children in school. Keywords: kindergarten, energy intake, protein intake, school feeding, non-school feeding

Recovering children's voices in consumer research

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how children can be empowered in the research process, as active agents and key informants, in matters affecting their consumption.Design/methodology/approachInsights are drawn from a study that used multiple methods to explore children's everyday food consumption practices. The data set was gathered over a period of two years and included: 23 informant‐generated visual diaries; seven online depth interviews; 15 school‐based depth interviews; 42 days of school‐based mealtime observations; and home‐based mealtime observations with four families, each visited on five different occasions.FindingsThe paper uncovers how visual diaries can be used in combination with other methods to transform relationships between adults and children in the research encounter. The emergent transformations are organised around three core themes that include: children's authentic voices; multiplex reality; and power and control. It was also found that children were able to express their own interpretations and thoughts about their food consumption practices, rather than solely relying on the adult interpretations of their lives.Originality/valueFor scholars and practitioners, the paper offers an approach that provides an opportunity for children to participate in family food decision‐making processes. It offers a cautionary tale not just about getting children to talk, but to allow children's voices to be heard in food policy initiatives, as well as in qualitative research and marketing. This poses a challenge to social researchers to think of different ways of engaging children in research.

Individual differences in food-cue reactivity

Previous studies have suggested that brief exposure to the sight and smell of food can elicit a momentary increase in desire to eat that food and can stimulate food intake. This thesis sought to explore individual differences in this 'food-cue reactivity.' Specifically, it aimed to explore associations between reactivity to food cues and i) dietary restraint (Experiments 1 to 6), ii) dietary disinhibition (Experiments 1 to 6), iii) everyday portion-size selection (Experiments 3 to 5), iv) body weight (Experiments 5 and 6), v) sensitivity to reward (BAS trait) (Experiment 6), and vi) Impulsivity (Experiment 6) Using a typical cue reactivity paradigm, female students (Experiment 1 n = 56, Experiment 2 n= 120, Experiment 3 n = 30, Experiment 4 n = 30, Experiment 5, n = 120, Experiment 6 n = 120) from Loughborough University (aged between 18 and 30) were exposed to a food cue and then a series of subjective (appetite ratings), and behavioural (intake and desired portion size), markers of appetite were assessed Notably, two main findings emerged from this research. Firstly, there was little evidence to suggest that food-cue reactivity shared any association with dietary restraint status per se. Rather, sensitivity to reward, impulsivity, and dietary disinhibition, were identified as potentially important determinants of sensitivity to food cues. Secondly, some experiments (Experiments 3 and 5) suggested that foodcue reactivity might be elevated in individuals who are overweight, and who select larger everyday portion sizes. Based on these findings, conclusions are drawn regarding the potential mechanisms which might govern food-cue reactivity, and the possible consequences of greater reactivity for everyday food consumption. In particular, it is concluded that food-cue reactivity might result from a universal sensitivity to stimuli which predict the occurrence of a reward, and from an inability to exercIse sufficient self-control in the presence of tempting environmental cues. In addition to this, it is also suggested that, over time, a greater susceptibility to the effects of food cues might contribute to, greater everyday food intake, and weight gain. To move forward within this research area, studies should continue to investigate the role of food-cue reactivity in overeating, and seek to further identify the mechanisms which promote greater reactivity to these cues.

Relationship between parental report of food neophobia and everyday food consumption in 2–6-year-old children

Relationship between parental report of food neophobia and everyday food consumption in 2–6-year-old children