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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.

Middle Class

In general, middle class is accessible to better food and resources than lower class, thus usually the population is healthier. The amount of money spent buying grocery isn’t a big concern and they afford closer to luxurious food items (in compare to upper class).

Historically, in the Europe, middle class workers get paid before working class, so they get the first choice of food in the market, and what is leftover was usually partially decayed cheese, wilted vegetables, bacon from diseased animals, etc…(1).

Studies have shown that middle class is less like to be permissive about cost and they tend to take their health into consideration, so not only they care about their health, they also have concerns about the food itself.(2)

However, in the US, there are studies that indicate middle class eat more and more processed food, and this class is actually the growing group for consumption and overtook the lower class for buying the most processed food. (3)(4). There is a trend for eating fast food in the US set by middle-income families as they’re more likely to eat fast food since they work longer hours, so time to prepare meals at home is replaced with other activities. In the same study, researchers also found that people who live in urban environment tend to eat more processed food because restaurants are closer and more accessible, compare to those who live in rural areas. (7).

Another study shows that the differences in fast food consumption is blurred between income classes, as the upper class eat about one less fast food meal than the lower class on average. Fast food consumption peaks in the middle-class income but the difference  is still not as clear, but one thing remain: the longer the work hour is, the more fast food being consumed. (8)

In China, in contrast to the US, its middle class gets better concepts of food quality and they’re focusing more on health and style. They concentrate more on vegetables and green produces other than meat, and organic products has been seeing a growth on sale and production with more and more organic farm being opened. (5)

In other areas of Asia, the rising middle class has set a few trends in the food industry, such as less in rice consumption and increasing in wheat products; increasing in high energy and protein food, and increasing in convenient food. (6)

1. 1. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/proceedings-of-the-nutrition-society/article/socioeconomic-differentials-in-health-the-role-of-nutrition/0392C36BDFDF96220F6EAA2E6ED2D914
   2. https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/health/Mt-Airy-based-food-anthropologist-studies-middle-class-eating-habits-locally-260941211.html
   3. https://www.thedailymeal.com/news/eat/fast-food-mostly-eaten-middle-class-not-poor
   4. https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/12/health/poor-americans-fast-food-partner/index.html
   5. https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/10354-China-s-middle-class-gets-a-taste-for-healthy-eating
   6. https://foodindustry.asia/the-changing-tastes-of-asias-consumers
   7. X https://insights.osu.edu/life/fastfood-myths
   8. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X16300363

Lower Class

Cheeseburger (fast food)

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.