Nutritional anthropology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nutritional anthropology is the interplay between human biology, economic systems, nutritional status and food security, and how changes in the former affect the latter. If economic and environmental changes in a community affect access to food, food security, and dietary health, then this interplay between culture and biology is in turn connected to broader historical and economic trends associated with globalization. Nutritional status affects overall health status, work performance potential, and the overall potential for economic development (either in terms of human development or traditional western models) for any given group of people.

General economics and nutrition

General economic summary

Most scholars construe economy as involving the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services within and between societies.^{[citation needed]} A key concept in a broad study of economies (versus a particular econometric study of commodities and stock markets) is social relations. For instance, many economic anthropologists state that the reciprocal gift exchange, competitive gift exchange, and impersonal market exchange are all reflective of dominant paradigms of social relations within a given society. The main forms of economy extant around most of the world today, in terms of a simple production, distribution, consumption model, are subsistence based and market economies. Subsistence refers to production and consumption on a small-scale of the household or community, while a market-based economy implies a much broader scale of production, distribution, and consumption. A market economy also entails the exchange of goods for currency, versus bartering commodities or being under continuing reciprocal gift exchange obligations. This is not to say that market economies do not coexist with subsistence economies and other forms, but that one type usually dominates within a given society. However, a broad array of scholarship exists, stating that market economies are rapidly increasing in importance on a global scale, even in societies that have traditionally relied much more heavily on subsistence production. This economic shift has nutritional implications that this entry will explore further.

Modes of production and nutrition

The most important step in understanding the links between economics and nutrition is to understand major modes of production that societies have used to produce the goods (and services) they have needed throughout human history; these modes are foraging, shifting cultivation, pastoralism, agriculture, and industrialism (Park 2006). 

Foraging, also known as hunting and gathering, is a subsistence strategy in which a group of people gathers wild plants and hunts wild animals in order to obtain food. This strategy was the sole mode of existence for human beings for the vast majority of human history (inclusive of the archeological and fossil record) and continued to be practiced by a few groups at least into the middle part of the 20th century. This mode of production is generally associated with small, nomadic groups of no more than fifty, also known as bands. The vast majority of foraging societies do not acknowledge exclusive ownership of land or other major resources, though they do acknowledge primary use rights for groups and people may individually possess small objects or tools such as a bow or cutting tools. Because foraging usually involves frequent movement and taking food naturally available rather than altering landscapes for production, many scholars state the foraging has a minimal negative environmental impact compared to other modes of production. Though foragers are generally limited in absolute amount of food available in a given area, foraging groups such as the !Kung in the Kalahari Desert have often been cited as having a more diverse diet and spending less time per week procuring food than societies that practice other modes of production such as intensive agriculture.

Shifting cultivation is a mode of production involving the low intensity production of plant-based foods; this mode is also known as horticulture or ‘slash and burn agriculture’ in some texts. Horticultural societies are generally situated in semi-sedentary villages of a few hundred that clear a field and burn the cleared vegetation in order to use the ashes to nourish the soil (hence the phrase slash and burn). Next, the group plants a crop or crops in this clearing and uses it for cultivation for several years. At the end of this period, the entire village relocates and starts the process anew, leaving the old clearing fallow for a period of decades in order to allow regeneration through the regrowth of wild vegetation. These food items can be supplemented through the raising of livestock, hunting wild game, and in many cases with the gathering of wild plants (Miller 2005; Park 2006). Though periodic movement precludes absolute permanent ownership of land, some horticultural societies fiercely defend current territories and practice violence against neighboring groups. For instance, Napoleon Chagnon (1997) depicts the Yanamamo of Venezuela and Brazil as the “Fierce People”, though others have been highly critical of Chagnon's account of this society. Horticulture can also produce a broad diet, and in some cases more food per unit of land area than foraging. Though populations of horticulturalists tend to have greater density than those of foragers, they are generally less dense than those which practice other modes of production. If practiced on a small scale, over a large area, with long fallow periods, horticulture has less negative environmental impact than agriculture or industrialism, but more than foraging (Miller 2005). Generally, horticulture coincides with a subsistence type of economy in terms of production, distribution. 

Pastoralism, defined as reliance on products from livestock coupled with a seasonal nomadic herding tradition, is similar to horticulture in that it is extensive in its use of land area. Social groups in pastoral societies tend to have similar numbers and population density to horticultural societies. Pastoral societies often trade animal products with agricultural societies for plant based foods to augment their diet. Frequent movement often means that pastoralism has a similar environmental impact to horticulture, though instances of overgrazing, and consequent land degradation (see later subsection under Globalization and Nutrition), have been sited in some cases. Pastoralism generally entails a greater reliance on meat or other animal products, such as milk or blood, than other modes of production. This mode of production has a similar use rights profile to shifting cultivation. Traditionally, pastoralism has coincided with a subsistence based economy, but in the last several decades, some pastoralist societies, such as Mongolia, have herded animals and practiced nomadic living patterns but have produced livestock primarily for market exchange. 

Agriculture, sometimes referred to as intensive agriculture, involves clearing and using the same plot of land for an extended period, sometimes several generations; it also involves the use of plows and draft animals in the preparation of land for planting and the cultivation of crops. Agriculture often supports much higher population densities than other modes of production (except industrialism) and agricultural societies can range in population from a few thousand into the millions. Though agriculture produces more food per unit of land area than the previously mentioned modes, the tendency of agricultural societies to focus on relatively few crops has often meant that these societies have much less diverse diets than foraging and horticultural societies. There is some archaeological and fossil evidence that populations in transition from foraging to agriculture have tended to suffer reduced stature, reduced musculature, and to exhibit other markers of malnutrition. Research has suggested that agriculture paradoxically allows a higher, but less healthy population for a given area. The advent of agriculture has marked that advent of social stratification in many parts of the world, with marked differentials in access to resources between segments of the same society. This mode of production also is more likely to entail permanent individual or family ownership of particular tracts of land than previously mentioned modes of production. Agriculture has co-occurred with both subsistence and market economies, often with a single society exhibiting some degree of both types of economies and has a more negative impact on the environment than the aforementioned modes of production.

Industrialism combines agriculture with mechanized industrial production of goods through the use of fossil fuels. Additionally, industrial societies use mechanized equipment in order to prepare land for planting, harvest crops, and distribute food to locations distant from where the original crops were planted. Industrialism shows similar trends to agriculture in terms of population density, and environmental impact, except to a much greater degree. Dietary diversity can be highly variable under an industrial mode of production and can depend on access to foods produced for local subsistence on the one hand, or to income level and purchasing power visa vie foods available in food markets (Leatherman and Goodman 2005). Dietary diversity and nutritional health often correlate with the degree of social stratification within an industrial society and sometimes between societies. With the exception of Soviet model states, industrial societies are heavily based on the concept of private property rights and the accumulation of profit through “free enterprise”. 

The general trend for many societies over the past several millennia has been toward agriculture, and in the past two centuries, toward industrialism. Though these two modes of production are by no means superior to other modes in every respect, the fact that societies that practice them tend to have larger populations, higher population densities, and a more complex social structure has correlated with the geographic expansion of agricultural and industrial societies at the expense of societies emphasizing other modes of production. Concurrent with this trend toward intensified agricultural and industrial production has been the rise of the social and economic paradigm of capitalism, which entails the production and sale of goods and services in the market place in order to produce a profit. These trends have had profound implications for nutritional status for human beings on a global scale. In order to discern how broader economic and environmental trends affect a community's food systems, food security, and nutritional status, it is important to summarize one of the most significant economic and ecological phenomena today, globalization. The next section will treat the linkages between economic and ideological trends over the last several centuries and environmental and political economic factors affecting access to food and nutritional status.

Globalization and nutrition

General summary of globalization

Though the scope and dimensions of globalization as most people currently construe it are of fairly recent origin, the broader phenomenon of global interconnections through cultural diffusion and trade is several centuries old. Starting in the late Fifteenth century, European powers expanded beyond the European sub-continent to found colonies in the Americas, East Asia, South Asia, Australia and Oceania. This expansion has had a profound impact in terms of wealth creation in Europe and extraction elsewhere, cultural changes in most of the world's societies, and biological phenomena such as the introduction of several infectious diseases into the Western Hemisphere, which caused tremendous disruption and population reduction for indigenous societies there. These events, far from occurring coincidentally, have had synergistic relationships, in one vivid example, the decimation of Amerindian populations through infectious disease often preceding and facilitating subsequent conquest by European powers. Such conquests in turn have often had significantly negative impacts on internal cohesion, ability of populations to attain adequate resources for their own subsistence and traditional social obligations, and local environments for colonized societies. In order to understand the effects of globalization on nutritional status and food security, it is important to understand the historical circumstances that have led to contemporary globalization, and that still manifest themselves in political, social, material, and physical/health differentials between (and within) the different peoples of the world today.

“The Rise of the Merchant, Industrialist, and Capital Controller,” written by Richard Robbins in 2005, uses a hypothetical scenario of the reader as a “merchant adventurer” to detail economic world history starting in 1400. In 1400, China was arguably the most cosmopolitan and technologically complex society in the world. It was a center of trade, along with the Middle East, East Africa, and ports on the Mediterranean Sea. Western Europe, while playing a part in this network, did not dominate it by any means; one could argue for European marginalization in fact. This circumstance began to change when the Europeans “discovered” the Americas, setting in motion a process that would disrupt many societies and devastate indigenous populations of the Western Hemisphere. The dominant economic paradigm of this period was mercantilism, whereby European merchants began to achieve power in world markets and in relation to European governing aristocracies. Robbins cites example of government protections that facilitated mercantilism in the form of exclusive proprietary rights to trading companies and armies used to protect trade by force if necessary. He details instances of government protection such as the example of how Great Britain destroyed India's textile industry and turned that society into an importer of textiles is especially illustrative. In dealing with imperialism, capitalism, and the rise of corporations, Robins further details the manner in which the “West” transformed various regions/peoples from proactive participants on global trade networks into sources of raw materials and consumers of European or North American exports. This history of world trade is important to the consideration of current issues of disparity of power and wealth.

There are many critiques the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the promotion of high intensity capital investment in developing nations (e.g. Weller et al. 2001; Fort et al. 2004). Disparities within nations and growing poverty rates in many nations also provide compelling evidence of the idea that the rewards of economic globalization are uneven at best. There is a great deal of literature about globalization and increases in health disparities both between and within countries. 

Finally, there is Amartya Sen with Development as Freedom (1999); here Sen disagrees about whether or not the world's poor are getting poorer, but also maintains that this criterion is not the most important. He argues that relative disparities and power differentials are the most important problems of globalization. Sen states that the increasing interconnection of the Worlds societies can have positive benefits, but that the disparities and opportunities for exploitation must be mitigated to the greatest extent possible, if they can not be eliminated outright. Sen provides groundwork for a nuanced middle ground between unabashed proponents and opponents of globalization. 

Far from being universally decried, the recent accelerated expansion of western capitalism, geographically, politically, and ideologically, has been lauded in many quarters. International and bilateral agencies such as the World Bank, IMF, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have utilized free market capitalist theories extensively in development programs in many corners of the globe whose state aims are to promote economic growth for communities and nation-states and to alleviate poverty. Likewise prominent individuals such as former U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chair Alan Greenspan and U.S. based journalist Thomas Friedman have held forth extensively about the possibilities of economic and social improvement in developed and developing nations alike, mainly through increased access to appropriate education, sophisticated communications and transportation technology, and a paradigm of social and economic “flexibility”, where individuals and communities who can best adapt to rapid changes in the role of governments and the particular economic base of a given location would be in the best position to take advantage of the opportunities offered by economic, political, and cultural globalization. This free market ideology is also predominant in the policies and procedures of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and many transnational corporations (TNC's), most of which are headquartered in developed nations. The rise of Capitalism and the free market society have indeed increased and exacerbated food insecurity in the world's poor due to the structure and function of a Capitalist society where only those who can afford to buy food to feed themselves are the only ones with access to a secure and adequate food supply. Food is no longer a human right to life and health due to the Capitalist approach to commodifying food in the free market society that as a result of globalization has spread all over the world. Transnational corporations and trade organizations such as NAFTA facilitate this approach of commodifying our world's food supply by enforcing laws and regulations which further deepen the inequality of wealth and unequal distribution of common goods such as food between the rich and the poor.

In contrast to the “western” economic model, most early social scholarship about economics stressed the predominance of reciprocity as a primary driving force in traditional non-Western societies. Marcel Mauss referred to the gift as a “total social phenomenon”, fraught with ritual and socio political as well as material significance. Though some objects, such as armbands or shell necklaces in the kula ring that runs through several island groups off the coast of Papua New Guinea, might induce some form of prestige based competition, the terms of exchange are significantly different than a monetary transaction under a modern capitalist system. While Appadurai actually describes ritual objects as a type of commodity, he couches them as such under significantly different terms than the market-based types of commodity normally treated by economists. Annette Wiener criticizes earlier works in anthropology and sociology that depicted “simple” societies utilizing a simple version of reciprocity. Whatever the theoretical stance of social scholars on non-western traditional economies, there is a consensus that such essentials as food and water tended to be shared more freely than other types of goods or services. This dynamic tends to change with the introduction of a market-based economy into a society, with food coming to be increasingly treated as a commodity, rather than a social good or an essential component of health and survival.

Regardless of one's overall perspective on the costs and benefits of economic globalization, there are several examples in social scholarship of groups of people suffering a decline in nutritional statues subsequent to the introduction of a capitalist market-based economy into an area that has previously practiced an economy based more on subsistence production and reciprocity. Although some people's food security may improve with access to more steady income, many people in communities that have heretofore practiced a subsistence economy may experienced greater food insecurity and nutritional status due to insufficient income to replace the foods no longer produced by a household. Whether the growth of food insecurity and socioeconomic disparities in many parts of the world in recent decades is an inherent part of globalization or a temporary “growing pain” until economic development attains its full efficacy is a matter of debate, but there are many empirical examples of communities being dissociated from traditional means of food production and not being able to find sufficient wages in a new market economy to achieve a balanced and calorically sufficient diet. Several factors affecting food security and nutritional status range on a continuum from more physical phenomena such as land degradation and land expropriation, to more culturally and socio-politically driven things such as cash cropping, dietary delocalization, and commoditization of food; one important caveat is that all of these trends are interconnected and fall under a broad category of socio-cultural and economic disruptions and dislocations under the current paradigm of globalization.

Land degradation

Though Blakie and Brookfield acknowledge the problematic aspects of defining land degradation, with definitional variation depending in large part on the scholar or stakeholder in question, they do outline a general idea of reduced soil fertility and reduced ability of a given area of land to provide for people's subsistence needs, as compared to earlier periods in human history on that same land area. Paul Farmer discusses the effects of land degradation in central Haiti on local people's ability to produce sufficient food for their families within the environs of their own communities. Farmer links malnutrition in a Haitian village with vulnerability to infectious diseases, including tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, both in terms of chance of infection and severity of symptoms for those infected. While the extremely low percentage of the U.S. population involved in agriculture strongly suggests that direct access to arable land is not an absolute necessity for food security and nutritional health, land degradation in many developing nations is accelerating the rate of rural to urban migration at a more accelerated rate than most major cities are equipped to handle. Leatherman and Goodman also allude to land degradation co-occurring with decreases in food security and nutritional status in some communities in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. Walter Edgar discusses the correlation between land degradation and economic disruption, as well as nutritional hardship, in the U.S. state of South Carolina in the decades following the Reconstruction Period. Coupled with land expropriation, land degradation has the effect of thrusting unprepared subsistence producers or other peasant farmers into a fast-paced and complex market economy heavily influence by policy makers who are far removed from the concerns and worldview of small scale farmers in developing countries.

Land expropriation

Occurring for a variety of reasons, land expropriation, or the disruption of traditional ownership of land by more powerful interests such as local elites, governments, or transnational corporations, can also markedly affect nutritional status. Robbins details examples in Mexico of peasants facing land expropriation in the face of agribusiness consolidation under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); in many cases, these subsistence producers are forced either to migrate to cities or work sporadically as agricultural labors. Since most if not all food must be purchased under these circumstances, the food security and nutritional status of these newer additions to the pool of poor unskilled labor often declines. Another common impetus for expropriation is non-agricultural “economic development”, often in the form of tourism. In one Example, Donald MacLeod details curtailment of subsistence activities, mainly fishing and cultivation, in areas of the Canary Islands in the face of pressures from tourism interests wishing to monopolize the “pristine” beauty of locations catering to Germans and other tourists from EU nations. Ironically, local people see relatively little monetary benefit from the rise in tourism, as many vacations are planned by German tour companies (linked with all inclusive German owned resorts in the Canary Islands) and are paid for before tourists ever arrive at their vacation destination. Leatherman and Goodman and Daltabuit point to circumscription of land available for traditional milpa horticultural production in communities in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo in the face of growing demands for land for resorts by tourism interests, under the auspices of the Mexican national government. One expropriation scenario with a long history is cash cropping, where crops grown for revenue from exports are prioritized over crops grown for local consumption.

Cash cropping

In Sweetness and Power, written by Sidney Mintz in 1985, details examples of mono-cropping, or planting massive areas with one cash crop, in several Caribbean Islands, including Cuba. He states that Cuba went from being an economically diverse place with many small scale subsistence producers to a mono-crop plantation system dependent on cash from its sugar crop and substantial food imports for the later centuries of the Spanish Colonial Period. He describes Cuba as an example of growing impoverishment and malnutrition concurrent with increasing concentration of land and other resources in fewer hands. Gross and Underwood illustrate the mid Twentieth Century example of the advent of sisal production in Northeastern Brazil. These authors detail a vicious cycle of the unfulfilled promises of sisal production for smallholders; because owners of sisal processing machines did not think small farms worth their time, small holders could not process and sell their sisal and were often forced to work as laborers on large farms. Sisal is cited as being particularly insidious because it is hard to eradicate once introduced and makes subsequent subsistence production virtually impossible. This article treats a common situation of households prioritizing working males in food allocation, exposing growing children to malnutrition, particularly under nutrition and micronutrient deficiency, and all of its attendant ills. Edgar discusses how exclusive planting of cotton in the Southeastern United States during the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries caused substantial land degradation, lead to a great deal of land expropriation from small scale farmers, and occurred in a context of widespread malnutrition. Especially in Today's complex, accelerated version of globalization, cash cropping is intimately linked with the delocalization of diets and the commoditization of food and has profound, though varied, implications for food security and nutritional status.

Delocalization and commoditization

In “Diet and Delocalization: Dietary Challenges since 1750”, Pelto and Pelto trace the concurrent historical development of global capitalism and dietary delocalization, a process in which increasing portions of diet for a household or community come from an increasing distance away from that same community. Nutritional scholars explicitly state that delocalization does not necessarily entail increased food insecurity and malnutrition, but that access to an adequate diet becomes increasingly removed from local control and increasingly contingent on access to hard cash or some other non-food precious resource. Leatherman and Goodman discuss the ironic result of their study in Quintana Roo that both the groups with the best and worst food security and nutritional status worked in service industries related to tourism, with the median group being a milpa community. They differentiate between those with stable employment and income who have access to a wide variety of foods on a regular basis and those with sporadic employment who struggle for caloric sufficiency within the household and have low dietary diversity. The main import of these examples is not that delocalization is universally negative, but that it tends to increase disparities of food security and nutritional status within and between social groups, with some segments suffering marked degradation of both. 

Closely linked with delocalization is food commoditization, or the treatment of food primarily as a market commodity, rather than prioritizing other uses, such as sustenance, human rights entitlement, or social relations. Dewey describes the deleterious effects of food commoditization for rural communities in Central America, to include reductions in food security and nutritional status. Much of tourism literature details marked increases in the commoditization of food subsequent to the introduction of tourism as a form of market based economic development. Dewey and Robbins also state that when food is primarily seen as a commodity by powerful interests, not only does such an ideology increase delocalization, but also land degradation and expropriation as elite land owners or transnational corporations cause massive social and ecological disruptions in the process of mono-cropping food crops over broad swaths of land in order to reap maximum profits from overseas sales. Indeed, delocalization and commoditization have significant potential to diminish food security and nutritional status in poor communities over broad areas of the world.

Dietary health

In terms of food security and dietary diversity, which are defined as reliable access to a caloric sufficiency and access to a wide variety of macro and micro nutrients in order to maintain nutritive balance, respectively, the commoditization of food plays a key role in diminishing the control local populations have over their own subsistence production. Delocalization of food systems, which Pelto and Pelto define as taking production of food out of a local subsistence context and tying it to geographically broader market systems, can precipitate marked cultural and nutritional disruption. Likewise commoditization of food systems, defined as a paradigm shift from one of subsistence or social significances shift toward one which treats food primarily as a market commodity, can affect dietary health as well as collective identity. Commoditization tends to shift food security and dietary diversity away from integrated kinship or other reciprocal distribution networks toward being an issue of who can best compete in a free market to achieve these ends; indeed, commoditization has often been linked to breakdowns in food entitlements, which are defined as cultural or social norms that ensure food access for all members of a given social group.

The deleterious effects of mild to moderate malnutrition (MMM) not only pertain to caloric insufficiency (often closely associated with food insecurity) but also to poor dietary diversity; in particular, curtailed access to protein, complex carbohydrates, zinc, iron, and other micronutrients. The ways in which undernutrition and micronutrient deficiency interact with other health effects are myriad. The most obvious manifestation of MMM, stunting is defined as height and or weight below the standard range for a particular age group. However, far from being a mere difference in height and weight, stunting was correlated with a wide variety of health effects. Closely related to stunting, level of physical activity closely articulates with nutritional status and affects childhood development. Chronically malnourished infants and toddlers showed decreased physical activity compared to supplemented groups or those who are adequately nourished.

Perhaps, the most critical facets of human development correlated to nutrition levels are behavior and cognition; development in these two areas could have profound effects on life chances for individuals and populations. In comparing a group of southern Mexican children subject to MMM and a group in the same region who received dietary supplements, Chavez et al. show a relation between MMM and poorer school performance; unsupplemented children showed poorer participation, greater degree of in-class distraction, more sleeping in class, and poorer performance on standardized tests. In addition, malnourished children showed poorer scores on intelligence quotient (I.Q.) tests than their supplemented counterparts.

Of all the aspects of human existence, sexual reproduction may have the most detailed articulation with malnutrition. In populations subject to MMM, menarche occurs later (15.5 years) than in adequately nourished populations; an early average menopause (40.5 years) makes for a relatively short reproductive period for women in the study area for Chavez et al. Because of longer postpartum periods of amenorrhea, birth spacing was an average of 27 months, versus 19 months. Though longer birth spacing can help control population growth, the evidence that Chavez et al. present suggest a curtailing of reproductive choice and adaptability due to malnutrition. This study also linked maternal MMM with higher infant and young child mortality.

Another effect of MMM crucial to life chances is work capacity; MMM shows a cyclical pattern of decreasing work capacity and its rewards, further exacerbating the problem. Allen found a correlation between reduced VO2 max rates among MMM populations and decreased muscular strength and endurance in the performance of strenuous manual labor. Although personal motivation can have a strong positive impact on individual work performance, better muscular development associated with a history of adequate nutrition increases overall work capacity, irrespective of effort. Among Jamaican cane cutters, those within normal size range cut more cane than those who showed stunting. One cultural variation in this trend was found among MMM Guatemalan workers who put forth work effort comparable to better nourished counterparts, but were likely to engage in resting behavior than in recreational or social activity during off hours. In wage economies where workers get paid in proportion to productive output, reduced work capacity can translate to reduced food security, increasing the risk of MMM. 

Additionally, malnutrition and infectious disease have a synergistic relationship that can lead to spiraling health deterioration. According to Allen, the incidence of infectious disease does not vary significantly between MMM and adequately nourished populations, but the duration and severity of disease episodes is greater for MMM populations. A key reason for this disparity is that infectious disease often results in poor food intake and nutrient absorption. Not only do sick people generally eat little, but what they do eat is often of minimal benefit due to nausea and diarrhea.

Aside from MMM due to under-nutrition or micro-nutrient deficiency, over-nutrition, defined as the consumption of too many calories for one's body size and physical activity level, is also becoming an increasingly significant problem for much of the World. Overnutrition has been associated with obesity, which the USDA and McEwen and Seeman correlate with increased risk of type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and stroke. Overnutrition is also often associated with the co-occurrence of caloric sufficiency (or over-sufficiency) and micronutrient deficiency, as is often the case where processed foods that are high in calories, but low in most nutrients, increase in dietary prominence. Leatherman and Goodman and Guest and Jones discuss the growing coincidence of stunting and other symptoms of MMM and obesity within developing nations, sometimes within the same community. This trend can be linked to changing economies and food practices in much of the World under contemporary economic globalization. 

Also the study conducted by Baten and Blum have illustrated changes in the effects from a particular diet of the population between 1870 and 1989. Important finding of the study was that the effect of the protein on heights of the individuals became less significant during the second half of the period under observation (i.e. 1950-1989). Moreover, the main sources of the protein were also modified. This was caused by the development of the technologies and global trade, which have likewise reduced the food shortage.

Food studies

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Food studies is the critical examination of food and its contexts within science, art, history, society, and other fields. It is distinctive from other food-related areas of study such as nutrition, agriculture, gastronomy, and culinary arts in that it tends to look beyond the mere consumption, production, and aesthetic appreciation of food and tries to illuminate food as it relates to a vast number of academic fields. It is thus a field that involves and attracts philosophers, historians, scientists, literary scholars, sociologists, art historians, anthropologists, and others.

State of the field

This is an interdisciplinary and emerging field, and as such there is a substantial crossover between academic and popular work. Practitioners reference best-selling authors, such as the journalist Michael Pollan, as well as scholars, such as the historian Warren Belasco and the anthropologist Sidney Mintz. While this makes the discipline somewhat volatile, it also makes it interesting and engaging. The journalist Paul Levy has noted, for example, that "Food studies is a subject so much in its infancy that it would be foolish to try to define it or in any way circumscribe it, because the topic, discipline or method you rule out today might be tomorrow’s big thing."

Research questions

Qualitative questions that are wrestled with include: What impact does food have on the environment? What are the ethics of eating? How does food contribute to systems of oppression? How are foods symbolic markers of identity? At the same time practitioners may ask seemingly basic questions that are nonetheless fundamental to human existence. Who chooses what we eat and why? How are foods traditionally prepared—and where is the boundary between authentic culinary heritage and invented traditions? How is food integrated into classrooms? There are also questions of the spatialization of foodways and the relationship to place. This has led to the development of the concept of "foodscape" - introduced in the early 1990s - and the related practice of foodscape mapping. Discussion of these questions has increased as a result of public concern about issues which have arisen as a result of the emergence of a vast array of novel food technologies throughout the last century, ranging from chemical fertilizers to GMOs. Pursuers of food studies approach these questions by first understanding the scientific, economic, and philosophical issues surrounding them.

Institutions

One branch of this community has organized itself as The Association for the Study of Food and Society. This group hosts an annual conference (along with the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society); it publishes an interdisciplinary journal, Food, Culture, and Society; and it maintains an email listserv with over a thousand members for discussion of food-related topics. ASFS maintains a list of institutions granting food studies related degrees. 

A few schools have programs in the field, including Julia Child and Jacques Pepin founded Boston University's Gastronomy Masters program and New York University's program in Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health. The Department of Anthropology at Indiana University has recently started a food studies concentration within their program, leading to a PhD in Anthropology, while The New School is developing an undergraduate program in Food Studies. Prof. Fabio Parasecoli is the Coordinator of Food Studies at the New School in New York City. 

Indiana University began offering a PhD track in Food Anthropology in 2005, and an undergraduate minor in the anthropology of food in 2007, followed quickly by the IU Geography Department, which now also offers an MA and PhD in Food Systems. In 2016 the Collins Living-Learning center at IU started offering an undergraduate certificate in Food and Sustainability. At the same time the University has established the IU Food Institute, to house a growing interdisciplinary Food Studies research group, chaired by Profs. Peter Todd and Richard Wilk. 

Syracuse University offers a Bachelor of Science or minor in food studies at the undergraduate level and a Masters of Science or Certificate of Advance Study (CAS) at the graduate level. With a systems perspective grounded in political economy, food studies at Syracuse University is a full stand-alone program with dedicated faculty, a dynamic and devoted group of students, a physical home - including extensive teaching kitchens, community partners including farms, food businesses, government agencies, and not-for-profit organizations, complementary programs on campus, and a growing list of professional contacts nationwide.

Chatham University Master of Arts in Food Studies. The Masters of Arts in Food Studies emphasizes a holistic approach to food systems, from agriculture and food production to cuisines and consumption, providing intellectual and practical experience from field to table. Prof. Alice Julier is the Coordinator of Food Studies at Chatham University. The University of Oregon in Eugene, USA, has recently launched a graduate specialization in food studies, and is aiming for a 2014 launch of an undergraduate degree. 

University of the Pacific, San Francisco has the only Master of Arts in Food Studies program on the West Coast. It is multidisciplinary and the curriculum encompasses food history, food writing, food production, food scarcity and justice, and food industry management and business. In addition to graduate seminars, faculty leads field visits to area restaurants, farms and food processing facilities. Ken Albala, a food historian and director of program is the author or editor of 23 scholarly and popular books on food. He writes, “Our goal is to engage students in the dynamism that is the Bay Area food and farming scene, while making connections with leaders throughout the food system. This is a great opportunity for people with an interest in food and food-related issues to earn a master’s degree in something they feel passionate about." 

In Italy, the American University of Rome offers a US-accredited 15-month Master in Food Studies with a strong international dimension focused on the linkages between food and the environment and policies for sustainable production, consumption and diets.

The Technological University Dublin, Ireland (previously Dublin Institute of Technology), offers a Master of Arts in Gastronomy and Food Studies that focuses on three pillars: History, Society and Practice. The two-year part-time programme - first of its kind in Ireland - features masterclasses, workshops, guest speakers, field trips and meal experiences and includes such courses as Global Cultural History of Food, Politics of the Global Food System, Food Writing and Media, History of Irish Food, Reading Historic Cookbooks, Social Approaches to Wine and Beverage Culture, Food Tourism, and Consumer Culture and Branding.

In the United Kingdom, SOAS, University of London has offered a master’s programme in the Anthropology of Food since 2007. The course offers students the opportunity to study food on a variety of levels, ranging from the domestic to the international. The institution is also home to the SOAS Food Studies Centre, an interdisciplinary research centre focused on furthering the academic study of food. 

Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, Scotland has launched a new master's degree in Gastronomy. This is a unique qualification and the first of its kind in Scotland, which allows students to engage with the broad range of issues connected with food, provenance, diet, health, and nutrition. The degree is not just about food, but also delves deeper to consider food culture within the contexts of anthropology, environment, sustainability, politics and communications. 

Food & History is a multilingual (French, English, German, Italian and Spanish) scientific journal that has been published since 2003 as the biannual scientific review of the European Institute for the History and Cultures of Food [fr] (IEHCA) based in Tours (linked to the Université François Rabelais). 

Even study abroad programs have created new, interdisciplinary food studies programs, among them Palazzo Rucellai in Florence and The Umbra Institute in Perugia. Gustolab International is another institution which offers research internships and courses in sustainable production and consumption, food and media, food waste, advertising, science and nutrition, new technologies, and the history of food in Italy, Japan and Vietnam. To be mentioned also is the Pollenzo-based (near Bra, Cuneo, Italy) University of Gastronomic Sciences, the Institut Européen d'Histoire et des Cultures de l'Alimentation (of Tours, France, mentioned above) and FOST: Social and Cultural Food Studies of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium), providing education in bachelor, master or postgraduate studies. 

Numerous presses publish academic and popular books about the cultural significance of food, some of which are Columbia University Press, University Press of Mississippi, the University of Nebraska Press, University of California Press, the University of Illinois Press, the MIT Press, Bloomsbury Academic, Rowman & Littlefield, Berg, Earthscan, Routledge, Prospect, and Equinox Publishing.

Food insecurity and health outcomes

In America, almost 50 million people are considered food insecure. This is because they do not have the means to buy healthy food, therefore, lead an unhealthy lifestyle. At least 1.4 times more children who are food insecure are likely to have asthma, compared to food-secure children. And older Americans who are food-insecure will tend to have limitations in their daily activities. When a household is lacking the means (money) to buy proper food, their health ultimately suffers. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program) is put in place to help families in need to get the proper nutrition they need in order to live a healthy lifestyle. There are 3 points that make a household eligible for SNAP. One, is their gross monthly income must be 130% of the federal poverty level. The second point they have to meet is being below poverty. And the last thing is they have to have assets of less than $2,000 except that households with at least one senior and households that include at least one person with a disability can have more assets. Multiple studies have shown SNAP as being successful in reducing poverty.

The major part of this research was examining children’s food insecurity, the effect of this have greatly affected a child’s performance. Due to food insecurity also runs the risk of possibly birth defects “5 anemia, 6,7 lower nutrient intakes, 8 cognitive problems, 9 and aggression and anxiety.”  As opposed to children in food-secure households, “children in food-insecure households had 2.0-3.0 times higher odds of having anemia, 6, 7 2.0 times higher odds of being in fair or poor health, 8 and 1.4-2.6 times higher odds of having asthma, depending on the age of the child.” 

Non senior adult had less research done on them in regards with the impacts of food insecurity “however, some of the studies in this limited set have shown that food insecurity is associated with decreased nutrient intakes; 20-25 increased rates of mental health problems and depression,10,26-30 diabetes, 31, 32 hypertension, 33 and hyperlipidemia; 32 worse outcomes on health exams; 33 being in poor or fair health; 23 , 34 and poor sleep outcomes 35.” Mothers who are food insecurity tend to be twice as likely to report mental health issues as well as oral health problems.

Food and education

Food and school are two interconnected topics. Children spend a large part of their day in school, so the food that is served in and around school greatly influences eating habits. Fast food in particular has proven to affect school children's health. Fast food marketing targets children. In the United States, more than 13 million children and adolescents are obese. Obesity prevalence was 13.9% among 2- to 5-year-olds, 18.4% among 6- to 11-year-olds, and 20.6% among 12- to 19-year-olds. The close proximity of fast food restaurants to schools has been speculated be one of the reasons for such high childhood obesity. in California, students with fast food restaurants within a half mile from their schools are more likely to be overweight, and are less likely to eat healthier foods. Fast food restaurants are also concentrated around schools in Chicago, increasing the risk of poor food choices for school children there. Research has shown that at least 80% of schools in Chicago have at least one fast food restaurant 10 minutes away. The close proximity of fast food restaurants to schools exposes US children to unhealthy, cheap meals that they can easily get to and from school, increasing the chances of childhood obesity. 

The influence of food on school children can also be a positive thing. Schools are being used to advocate for obesity prevention, since nutrition has been proven to be linked to academic performance. The overweight students do not perform as well academically, and also deal with health related issues that take away from school time To combat this, schools are working to help their students. 83% of public and private schools provide breakfast and lunch programs that serve nutritious food up to federal standards, and these programs are proven to be beneficial for students' nutrition.

The prevalence of competitive foods in schools are still providing students with unhealthy foods. Competitive foods are the foods that are for sale to students besides the federal meals. Usually these foods are high in fat and sugar, and access to vending machines allows for students to have sugary drinks as well. A 2003 California High School Fast Food Survey found that about one-fourth of 173 districts served brand name fast food from Subway, Domino's, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. These foods are reached for more than the healthier options. 

Parents and the public have raised concerns about the health impacts of the competitive food in schools. Healthier food costs schools more to buy, so the concern of losing revenue influences the purchase of cheaper, less healthy options. Even so, schools in Maine, California, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania were able to replace sugary drinks with healthier options without losing revenue.

School nutrition programs have also helped fight poor eating habits of students with the support of parents and school administrators. Making it Happen! School Nutrition Success Stories is a program that provides healthier alternative foods to schools. Schools have been doing their part by changing food contracts, promoting better eating, and fundraising for better student health.

Food industry and economy

The food industry has a rapid rate of increasing sectors such as restaurants and fast food places that impact the economy in the long and short run. There are many people involved behind a successful business. In the food industry, the workers that are involved include servers, waiters, chefs, farmworkers and all restaurant workers. The issue is that some of these workers are paid minimum wage for all the effort they put in. The work individuals do involves picking fruits and vegetables that are served in the meal, they make the food, serve it to the consumers and wash dishes. These workers deal with working conditions, aspirations and labor practices. But these workers specifically have to deal with poor working conditions such as unsanitary kitchens which affect the food that is served to the consumers and can negatively impact their health. 

This allows the society to see from the perspective of how the workers and their relationship to the food can be demonstrated as multiple meanings for them because they live off of it. These people include immigrant restaurant owners and mobile food vendors. Ellen Kossek and Lisa Burke did a research on “Developing Occupational and Family Resilience in US Migrant Farm Workers” which explained how the migrant workers in the agriculture industry face tough circumstances in their work and home environment. The other conditions besides low work wages include difficult working conditions, health problems, not well suited housing, family issues and children's lives impacted negatively. These conditions are categorized as 'acculturative stress' but the goal is to maintain a healthy and better life which does not have a negative impact on family relations and job performance. One of the findings from the research was that the farm work mothers who had an infant in the Migrant Head Start Program, those ladies performed better in their household and at work. 

There can be programs developed as a solution to the problem with the goal of improving social networks for the migrant farmworkers and better education systems for the children. The benefits of creating these programs will help in improving work, childcare and housing conditions for farmworkers and their families. The issue is that they have to move constantly based on the season because there are limited opportunities. Another study was done by Saru Jayaraman and Sean Basinski who focused on this issue. In "Feeding America: Immigrants in the Restaurant Industry and Throughout the Food System Take Action for Change," they provide data which looks at the working conditions and poverty rates that affect the workers. There were efforts made by Restaurant Opportunities Centers United to better wages, benefits and opportunities to advance. These studies allow us to see the workers experiences and the conditions they deal with. Our goal should be to get involved and make a healthy and sustainable industry.

Food choice

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Research into food choice investigates how people select the food they eat. An interdisciplinary topic, food choice comprises psychological and sociological aspects (including food politics and phenomena such as vegetarianism or religious dietary laws), economic issues (for instance, how food prices or marketing campaigns influence choice) and sensory aspects (such as the study of the organoleptic qualities of food).

Factors that guide food choice include taste preference, sensory attributes, cost, availability, convenience, cognitive restraint, and cultural familiarity. In addition, environmental cues and increased portion sizes play a role in the choice and amount of foods consumed.

Food choice is the subject of research in nutrition, food science, psychology, anthropology, sociology, and other branches of the natural and social sciences. It is of practical interest to the food industry and especially its marketing endeavors. Social scientists have developed different conceptual frameworks of food choice behavior. Theoretical models of behavior incorporate both individual and environmental factors affecting the formation or modification of behaviors. Social cognitive theory examines the interaction of environmental, personal, and behavioral factors.

Taste preference

Researchers have found that consumers cite taste as the primary determinant of food choice. Genetic differences in the ability to perceive bitter taste are believed to play a role in the willingness to eat bitter-tasting vegetables and in the preferences for sweet taste and fat content of foods. Approximately 25 percent of the US population are supertasters and 50 percent are tasters. Epidemiological studies suggest that nontasters are more likely to eat a wider variety of foods and to have a higher body mass index (BMI), a measure of weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared.

Environmental influences

Many environmental cues influence food choice and intake, although consumers may not be aware of their effects. Examples of environmental influences include portion size, serving aids, food variety, and ambient characteristics (discussed below).

Portion size

Portion sizes in the United States have increased markedly in the past several decades. For example, from 1977 to 1996, portion sizes increased by 60 percent for salty snacks and 52 percent for soft drinks. Importantly, larger product portion sizes and larger servings in restaurants and kitchens consistently increase food intake. Larger portion sizes may even cause people to eat more of foods that are ostensibly distasteful; in one study individuals ate significantly more stale, two-week-old popcorn when it was served in a large versus a medium-sized container.

Serving aids

Over 70 percent of one's total intake is consumed using serving aids such as plates, bowls, glasses, or utensils. Consequently, serving aids can act as visual cues or cognitive shortcuts that inform us of when to stop serving, eating, or drinking.

In one study, teenagers poured and consumed 74 percent more juice into short, wide glasses compared to tall, narrow glasses of the same volume. Similarly, veteran bartenders tend to pour 26 percent more liquor into short, wide glasses versus tall, narrow glasses. This may be explained in part by Piaget's vertical-horizontal illusion, in which people tend to focus on and overestimate an object's vertical dimension at the expense of its horizontal dimension, even when the two dimensions are identical in length.

In addition, larger bowls and spoons can also cause people to serve and consume a greater volume of food, although this effect may not also extend to larger plates. It has been suggested that people serve more food into larger dishes due to the Delboeuf illusion, a phenomenon in which two identical circles are perceived to be different in size depending upon the sizes of larger circles surrounding them.

Plate color has also been shown to influence perception and liking; in one study individuals perceived a dessert to be significantly more likable, sweet, and intense when it was served on a white versus a black plate.

Food variety

'The Food Guide Pyramid.

 

As a given food is increasingly consumed, the hedonic pleasantness of the food's taste, smell, appearance, and texture declines, an effect commonly referred to as sensory-specific satiety. Consequently, increasing the variety of foods available can increase overall food intake. This effect has been observed across both genders and across multiple age groups, although there is some evidence that it may be most pronounced in adolescence and diminished among older adults.

Even the perceived variety of food can increase consumption; individuals consumed more M&M candies when they came in ten versus seven colors, despite identical taste. Furthermore, simply making a food assortment appear more disorganized versus organized can increase intake.

It has been suggested that this variety effect may be evolutionarily adaptive, as complete nutrition cannot be found in a single food, and increased dietary variety increases the likelihood of meeting nutritional requirements for various vitamins and minerals.

Ambient characteristics

Salience

Increased food salience in one's environment (including both food visibility and proximity) has been shown to increase consumption. Regarding visibility, food is consumed at a faster rate or at a greater volume when it is presented in clear versus opaque containers. Having large stockpiles of food products at home can increase their rate of consumption initially; however, after about a week's time the consumption rate may drop back down to the level of non-stockpiled foods, perhaps due to sensory-specific satiety. Salient foods may increase intake by serving as a continuous consumption reminder and increasing the number of food-related cognitive choices an individual must make. Additionally, some studies have found that obese individuals may be more susceptible to the influence of food salience and external cues than individuals with a normal-weight BMI.

Distractions

Distractions can increase food intake by initiating patterns of consumption, obscuring ability to accurately monitor consumption, and extending meal duration. For example, greater television viewing has been associated with increased meal frequency and caloric intake. A study in Australian children found that those who watched two or more hours of television per day were more likely to consume savory snacks and less likely to consume fruit compared to those who watched less television. Other distractors such as reading, movie watching, and listening to the radio have also been associated with increased consumption.

Temperature

Energy expenditure increases when ambient temperature is above or below the thermal neutral zone (the range of ambient temperature in which energy expenditure is not required for homeothermy). It has been suggested that energy intake also increases during conditions of extreme or prolonged cold temperatures. Relatedly, researchers have posited that reduced variability of ambient temperature indoors could be a mechanism driving obesity, as the percentage of US homes with air conditioning increased from 23 to 47 percent in recent decades. In addition, several human  and animal studies have shown that temperatures above the thermoneutral zone significantly reduce food intake. However, overall there are few studies indicating altered energy intake in response to extreme ambient temperatures and the evidence is primarily anecdotal.

Lighting

There is a dearth of research investigating relationships between lighting and intake; however, extant literature suggests that harsh or glaring lighting promotes eating faster, whereas soft or warm lighting increases food intake by increasing comfort level, lowering inhibition, and extending meal duration.

Music

Compared to fast-tempo music, low-tempo music in a restaurant setting has been associated with longer meal duration and greater consumption of both food and drink, including alcoholic beverages. Similarly, when individuals hear preferred versus non-preferred music they tend to stay at dining establishments longer and spend more money on food and drink.

Expert advice

In 2010, for the first time, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) highlighted the role of the food environment in American food choices and recommended changes in the food environment to support individual behavior modification. The influence of environmental cues and other subtle factors have increased interest in using the principles of behavioral economics to change food behaviors.

Social influences

Presence and behavior of others

There is a substantial amount of research indicating that the presence of others influences food intake (discussed below). In reviewing this literature, Herman, Roth, and Polivy have outlined three distinct effects: 

1. Social facilitation – When eating in groups, people tend to eat more than they do when alone.

In daily diary studies, individuals have been found to eat from 30  to 40-50 percent more while in the presence of others versus eating alone. In fact, some research has indicated that the rate of intake is best described as a linear function of the number of people present, such that meals eaten with one, four, or seven other people were 33, 69, and 96 percent larger than meals eaten alone, respectively. In addition to these observational findings, there is also experimental evidence for social facilitation effects.

Meal duration may be an important factor in social facilitation effects; observational research has identified positive correlations between group size and meal duration, and further investigation has confirmed meal duration as a mediator of group size-intake relationships.

2. Modeling – When eating in the presence of others who consistently eat either a lot or a little, individuals tend to mirror this behavior by also eating either a lot or a little.

Early studies of modeling effects investigated food intake alone versus in the presence of others who either ate either a very small amount (1 cracker) or a larger amount (20-40 crackers). Findings were consistent, with individuals consuming more when paired with a high-consumption companion than a low-consumption companion, whereas eating alone was associated with an intermediate amount of intake. Research manipulating eating social norms within real-life actual friendships has also demonstrated modeling effects, as individuals ate less in the company of friends who had been instructed to restrict their intake versus those who had not been given these instructions. Furthermore, these modeling effects have been reported across a range of diverse demographics, affecting both normal-weight and overweight individuals, as well as both dieters and non-dieters. Finally, regardless of whether individuals are very hungry or very full, modeling effects remain very strong, suggesting that modeling may trump signals of hunger or satiety sent from the gut.

3. Impression management – When people eat in the presence of others who they perceive to be observing or evaluating them, they tend to eat less than they would otherwise eat alone.

Leary and Kowalski define impression management in general as the process by which individuals attempt to control the impressions others form of them. Previous research has shown that certain types of eating companions make people more or less eager to convey a good impression, and individuals often attempt to achieve this goal by eating less. For example, people who are eating in the presence of unfamiliar others during a job interview or first date tend to eat less.

In a series of studies by Mori, Chaiken and Pliner, individuals were given an opportunity to snack while getting acquainted with a stranger. In the first study, both males and females tended to eat less while in the presence of an opposite-sex eating companion, and for females this effect was most pronounced when the companion was most desirable. It also seems that women may consume less in order to exude a feminine identity; in a second study, women who were made to believe that a male companion viewed them as masculine ate less than women who believed they were perceived as feminine.

The weight of eating companions may also influence the volume of food consumed. Obese individuals have been found to eat significantly more in the presence of other obese individuals compared to normal-weight others, while normal-weight individuals' eating appears unaffected by the weight of eating companions.

4. Awareness Although the presence and behavior of others can have a strong impact on eating behavior, many individuals are not aware of these effects, and instead tend to attribute their eating behavior primarily to other factors such as hunger and taste. Relatedly, people tend to perceive factors like cost and health effects as significantly more influential than social norms in determining their own fruit and vegetable consumption.

Weight bias

Individuals who are overweight or obese may suffer from stigmatization or discrimination related to their weight, also called weightism or weight bias. There is emerging evidence that experiences with weight stigma may be a type of stereotype threat which leads to behavior consistent with the stereotype; for example, overweight and obese individuals ate more food after exposure to a weight stigmatizing condition. Additionally, in a study of over 2,400 overweight and obese women, 79 percent of women reported coping with weight stigma on multiple occasions by eating more food.

Cognitive dietary restraint

Cognitive dietary restraint refers to the condition where one is constantly monitoring and attempting to restrict food intake in order to achieve or maintain a desired body weight. Strategies used by restrained eaters include choosing reduced-calorie and reduced-fat foods, in addition to restricting overall caloric intake. Individuals are classified as restrained eaters based on responses to validated questionnaires such as the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire and the restraint subscale of the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire. Recent research suggests that the combination of restraint and disinhibition more accurately predict food choice than dietary restraint alone. Disinhibition is another factor measured by the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire. A positive score reflects a tendency towards overeating. Individuals scoring high on the disinhibition subscale eat in response to negative emotion, overeat when others are eating, and when in the presence of tasty or comfort foods.

Gender differences

When it comes to selecting food, women are more likely than men to choose and consume foods based on health concerns or food contents. One possible explanation for this observed difference is women may be more concerned with body weight issues when choosing certain types of foods. There may be an inverse relationship, as adolescent girls are noted to have lower intakes of vitamins and minerals and ingest fewer fruits/vegetables and dairy foods than adolescent boys.

Age differences

Across the lifespan, different eating habits can be observed based on socio-economic status, workforce conditions, financial security, and taste preference amongst other factors. A significant portion of middle-aged and older adults responded to choosing foods due to concerns with body-weight and heart disease, whereas adolescents select food without consideration of the impact on their health. Convenience, appeal of food (taste and appearance), and hunger and food cravings were found to be the greatest determinants of an adolescent’s food choice. Food choice can change from an early to mature age as a result of a more sophisticated taste palate, income, and concerns about health and wellness.

Socio-economic status

Income and level of education influence food choice via the availability of the resources to purchase a higher quality food and awareness of nutritious alternatives. Diet may vary depending on the availability of income to purchase more healthier, nutrient-rich foods. For a low-income family, pricing plays a larger role than taste and quality in whether the food will be purchased. This may partly explain the lower life expectancy of lower-income groups. Similarly, higher levels of education equate to higher expectations from functional foods and avoidance of food additives. Compared to conventional foods, organic foods have a higher cost and people may have limited access if generating a low income. The variety of foods carried in neighborhood stores may also influence diet ("food deserts").