Talk:Social class differences in food consumption

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Zmyer002 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Samf1998, Shortieex.

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mdl516 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Aeb604.

Additional information

What I plan on contributing to this article:

-How these differences are seen in various countries

-How this concept relates to food deserts and food security

-Some of the characteristics of foods that are normally eaten by people of different social classes (across cultures)

-The attitudes of people towards certain foods and the stigmas that are attached to these foods

Sources:

Fajans, Jane. Brazilian Food: Race, Class and Identity in Regional Cuisines. London: Berg, 2012. Print.

Kato, Yuki, and Laura Mckinney. "Bringing Food Desert Residents to an Alternative Food Market: A Semi-Experimental Study of Impediments to Food Access." Agriculture and Human Values 32.2 (2015): 215-27. ProQuest. Web. 1Oct. 2016.

Musarò, Pierluigi. "Food Consumption and Urban Poverty: An Ethnographic Study." Italian Sociological Review 3.3 (2013): 142-51. ProQuest. Web. 2 Oct. 2016.

Pilcher, Jeffrey M. Food in World History. New York, NY: Routledge, 2006. Internet resource.

Rock, Melanie, Lynn Mcintyre, and Krista Rondeau. "Discomforting Comfort Foods: Stirring the Pot on Kraft Dinner® and Social Inequality in Canada." Agriculture and Human Values 26.3 (2009): 167-76. ProQuest. Web. 1 Oct. 2016.

Wilk, Richard R. Fast Food/slow Food: The Cultural Economy of the Global Food System. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press, 2006. Print.

Wright, Wynne, and Elizabeth Ransom. "STRATIFICATION ON THE MENU: USING RESTAURANT MENUS TO EXAMINE SOCIAL CLASS*." Teaching Sociology 33.3 (2005): 310-6. ProQuest. Web. 4 Oct. 2016.

Zmyer002 (talk) 22:54, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Peer Review

Hello. I'm Samantha and I'm excited to peer review this article because this topic seems very interesting. I actually have discussed this topic in one of my education classes and actually have some video clips from certain documentaries that may be of interest for this article if you would like the links for them! @Zmyer002 Samf1998 (talk) 14:57, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

@Samf1998: Hi, Samantha, it's Zonya. Could you please send me the links? I'd greatly appreciate it! Thank you so much :). Zmyer002 (talk) 05:04, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

@Zymer002: Here you go! I believe some of them are clips from a documentary. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqYCePrzJWA Food or Medicine? I also think you should look into the documentary "A Place at the Table." I hope this helps!Samf1998 (talk) 13:54, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Peer Review

Hello, I'm Samaria and I will be assisting Samantha to peer review your article. I think the topics you are planning to contribute to this article are great. Here are a few questions to keep in mind that may be useful:

• Does social class determine what we eat?
• Does social class predict our diet quality?
• Does health cost or considerations factor in what we eat? @Zmyer002 Shortieex (talk) 15:45, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

@Shortieex: Hello, Samaria. I will definitely be taking these questions into consideration. I am very grateful for your input! I'll ping you from my sandbox so you can see the progression of my draft. Zmyer002 (talk) 05:22, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Suggested Bibliography

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

Feldman, Charles. “Roman Taste.” Food, Culture, and Society, vol. 8, no. 1, 2005, pp. 7–30.

Laudan, Rachel. Cuisine and Empire: Cooking In World History. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2013.

Mennell, Stephen. All manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France to the Present. University of Illinois Press, 1985.

Twiss, Katheryn. “The Archaeology of Food and Social Diversity.” Journal of Archaeological Research, vol. 20, no. 4, 2012, pp. 357–395. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41680530.

Wesson, Cameron B. “Chiefly Power and Food Storage in Southeastern North America.” World Archaeology, vol. 31, no. 1, 1999, pp. 145–164. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/125100.

EVCC group improvement project

Linchukbb (talk) 18:18, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Hello, We are a group from EVCC who chose this article to improve as part of an English composition course assignment. Below are some preliminary links to sources we think may be useful for this topic.

Articles for Research

Costs of a Healthy Diet Article: (PDF Download) https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/public-health-nutrition/article/costs-of-a-healthy-diet-analysis-from-the-uk-womens-cohort-study/892904335791E51D6601A7297CF6FEA8

Can Low-Income Americans Afford a Healthy Diet? Web Article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2847733/

Diet Quality and Adolescent Mental Health Web Article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/00048670903571598

Relationship of Hunger and Food Insecurity to Food Availability and Consumption Web Article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002822396002714

Effects of Fast-Food Consumption on Energy Intake and Diet Quality on Children (PDF): https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mark_Pereira2/publication/295704475_Effects_of_Fast_Food_Consumption_on_Energy_Intake_and_Diet_Quality_Among_Children_in_a_National_Household_Study/links/02bfe5112a3b76c4d3000000/Effects-of-Fast-Food-Consumption-on-Energy-Intake-and-Diet-Quality-Among-Children-in-a-National-Household-Study.pdf

Eating Patterns, Dietary Quality and Obesity Web Article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07315724.2001.10719064

Article on effects of poor nutrition in low income countries; reduction in fertility, body composition, aging effects, ect. https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article-abstract/52/9/285/1890842

Review of effects poor nutrition has on individuals: https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/87/5/1107/4650128

Review on inequality between classes in food choice: https://www.bmj.com/content/314/7093/1545.short

Book on food Justice: https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=76z2HF-tp7kC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=social+class+inequality+in+food+consumption&ots=T1T9DLgUoi&sig=4Wjx6PvXkIMX2CXTCyi1WwHtxTM#v=onepage&q=social%20class%20inequality%20in%20food%20consumption&f=false

Perspective on social inequality leading to poor food choices for caloric: requirementshttps://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article-abstract/67/suppl_1/S36/1872742

Specific to Europe (ranges North to South) showing consumption of veggies and fruits: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/public-health-nutrition/article/disparities-in-vegetable-and-fruit-consumption-european-cases-from-the-north-to-the-south/46AE951C118D73F04B1526E32B512640

Study done on 45 neighbors (all Women) to see how food conscious, aware and influenced by monetary status these women were: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/public-health-nutrition/article/socioeconomic-inequalities-in-womens-fruit-and-vegetable-intakes-a-multilevel-study-of-individual-social-and-environmental-mediators/24DA84B9771329992A316D033D7374C7 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Linchukbb (talk • contribs) 17:31, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Bogdan's contributions section

Linchukbb (talk) 18:16, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

 1) proposition to remove or rephrase the below text from the intro paragraph from this article,

"Based on the food that people decide to consume, their social class position is often revealed."

 2) proposition to incorporate an outline organized by social classes resembling the following,

Social classes

Upper class

• How do upper class eat?+ example and cited source
• How they obtain food? (self sustaining; in exchange for money)
• Diet example + cited source
• quality of diet (luxurious; better than just ok with limitless variety)
• Food availability example + cited source

Middle class

• How do middle class eat?+ example and cited source
• How they obtain food? (self sustaining; in exchange for money)
• Diet example + cited source
• quality of diet (good overall)
• Food availability example + cited source

Lower class

• How do lower class eat? + example and cited source
• How is food obtained? (food stamps, government help, etc.)
• Diet example + cited source
• quality of diet (misnourished; bad quality)
• Food availability example + cited source

3) IDEA: Better, more clearly and thoroughly address processed vs. unprocessed foods 

• role of each type of food in the diet of each social class
• health effects of eating processed vs. unprocessed foods
• Possibly create separate section or sub-section titled health effects of Processed and unprocessed foods?

4) IDEA: Address history of issue?

• research and address the fact the currently, in the USA at least, poor people (lower class) rarely if ever starve to death but rather are obese because of the foods they consume, whereas in history poor people (lower class) starved and where very skinny.

5) IDEA: Address general issue of social class differences in food consumption beyond the USA

Linchukbb (talk) 19:25, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Below is my test page

Food consumption differences amongst classes

A family eating a meal

People from different social classes eat different foods. Not all foods are available to everyone. People start to learn to like foods that are appropriate to their class while they are children. Based on the food that people decide to consume, their social class position is often revealed.

People from the middle classes generally enjoy healthier diets than their lower class counterparts. Part of the explanation for this is that middle-class parents tend to be less permissive in their food choices, are less concerned with the cost of food products, and are more attuned to issues of health. However, permissiveness, health and cost considerations are insufficient to account for the social class variation in food consumption.

The significance of a food surplus in class demarcation ought to be highlighted in this section. In antiquity, those (typically upper classes) hoarding a sizeable surplus of harvests were granted experimental agencies leading to the development of elite cuisines. This principle may be contextualized by food historian Rachel Laudan’s assertion that “the humble, constantly at risk of real hunger, had every reason not to experiment with innovative cooking techniques” due to a scarce reserve of harvests.

Social class differences in food consumption are not necessarily static. A study of Finnish consumption patterns for the period from 1979 to 1990 found that across all classes the consumption of butter, high-fat milk, coffee and sugar had decreased and the consumption of vegetables had increased. From the mid-1980s, social class differences in food consumption had diminished with the lower social classes following consumption patterns established by the upper classes.

Pierre Bourdieu

Author of Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu wrote extensively on how people of different social classes (specifically the working class) choose what they eat. According to Bourdieu, there isn't much of a choice when it comes to food regarding the working class. The middle class decides which foods are "good" and "bad", which in turn influences what the working class consumes. While the middle class can afford to eat whatever they'd like, the working class simply has a "taste for necessity" and eats what they can afford.

Food deserts

A food desert is a geographical area that lacks adequate grocery stores or markets that provide fresh and nutritious foods that are financially accessible to the people within the area. Food deserts are often found in lower income neighborhoods, which in turn limits the availability of higher quality foods to residents of these neighborhoods. Since the residents of these areas are not able to consistently shop for groceries within a reasonable distance from where they reside, this results in their regular consumption of foods considered unsuitable for maintaining a healthy and nutritious diet (i.e. fast food or food from convenience stores).

In the United States

Cheeseburger (fast food)

People tend to define types of foods as belonging to a certain class based on how expensive (or inexpensive) they are. In a study done on students who were asked to categorize restaurant menu items into each of the different social classes, students considered cheap, simple meals lower-class while meals that were much more expensive and came with a choice of wine were considered upper-class.

Since the early 2000s, restaurants and fast-food chains have been incorporating gourmet hamburgers into their menus which often consist of high-end or exotic ingredients. While people of all social classes have access to fast-food restaurants that sell "better burgers" (which are burgers that are considered to be of greater quality than the traditional burger), some restaurants sell expensive burgers that are exclusive to those who can afford them.

In Canada

Kraft macaroni and cheese

Food-secure Canadians perceive Kraft Dinners as comforting while food insecure Canadians find it discomforting. This is due to the fact that the food-secure Canadians can afford to eat meals other than those made by Kraft, while food-insecure Canadians have very few options. Furthermore, Kraft meal kits are often found at food banks and charities which contributes to the reason why food-insecure people who visit these places find them undesirable.

Further reading

• Germov, John; Williams, Lauren (2008). A sociology of food and nutrition: the social appetite. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-555150-1. Retrieved 22 August 2011.
• Vannoni, F.; Spadea, T.; Frasca, G.; Tumino, R.; Demaria, M.; Sacerdote, C.; Panico, S.; Celentano, E.; Palli, D.; Saieva, C.; Pala, V.; Sieri, S.; Costa, G. (2003). "Association between social class and food consumption in the Italian EPIC population". Tumori. 89 (6): 669–678. PMID 14870832.
• Gibson, S.; Williams, S. (1999). "Dental Caries in Pre–School Children: Associations with Social Class, Toothbrushing Habit and Consumption of Sugars and Sugar–Containing Foods". Caries Research. 33 (2): 101–113. doi:10.1159/000016503. PMID 9892777.
• Drewnowski, A. (2010). "The cost of US foods as related to their nutritive value". American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 92 (5): 1181–1188. doi:10.3945/ajcn.2010.29300. PMC 2954450. PMID 20720258.
• Irala-Estévez, J. D.; Groth, M.; Johansson, L.; Oltersdorf, U.; Prättälä, R.; Martínez-González, M. A. (2000). "A systematic review of socio-economic differences in food habits in Europe: Consumption of fruit and vegetables". European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 54 (9): 706–714. doi:10.1038/sj.ejcn.1601080. PMID 11002383.
• Hulshof, K. F. A. M.; Brussaard, J. H.; Kruizinga, A. G.; Telman, J.; Löwik, M. R. H. (2003). "Socio-economic status, dietary intake and 10 y trends: The Dutch National Food Consumption Survey". European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 57 (1): 128–137. doi:10.1038/sj.ejcn.1601503. PMID 12548307.