Food Habits and

Social Concept

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

The most important factors influencing food choice

• Quality and freshness• Price • Taste • Eat healthy• Family preferences

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Perception of sensory attributes

Socio-culturalPrice

Availabilitybrand

Physical/chemicalproperties

Nutrient content

Psychologicaleffects

Psychologicalfactors

Food choice

Attitudes

Person

Food

EconomicSocial

From Shepherd & Sparks (1999).

Cultural factors• Culture is a major determinant of human food

choice. There is evidence that traditions, beliefs and values are among the main factors influencing preference, mode of food preparation, serving and nutritional status.

• Food is always considered to be major part of culture, and culture is considered to be the major influence leading to food choice, specially, a culture shares certain food choices.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Core and Complementary foods model

• Core Foods: foods eaten regularly included in a person’s diet (daily basis)

• Secondary Foods: widely but less frequently eaten

• Peripheral Foods: foods eaten infrequently

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Core Foods

Complementary Foods

Secondary Foods

Peripheral Foods

Genetics or culture influences?

• Early cross-cultural studies focused on comparison of sensory perception such as sensitivity or discrimination.

• Most studies looking at perception of tastes

in solutions were found no differences between cultures.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Genetics or culture influences?

• No difference was recorded in the four basic taste (salt, sweet, bitter, sour) thresholds between Nigerian, Korean and American subjects.

• There is some evidence that smell perception may differ between cultures (Japanese and Europeans).

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Genetics or culture influences?

• Taste intensity liking has been found to vary between cultures depending on the context or food.

• Cross-culture differences in food preferences appears to begin from experience, dietary habits and attitudes to food, rather than a strong genetic influence.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Culture flavour principles

• Flavour principles have been suggested to characterize particular culture food preferences. For example, tomato, olive oil, garlic and herbs are characteristic of certain cuisines of Mediterranean countries or regions.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

• Cuisine can be structured as:

Basic foodstuffs

Manipulative techniques

Cultural (or regional) flavour principles

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Biology, culture and individual behaviour

• Chilli, corn and sugar have been used as examples to show the way in which culture and individual behaviour influence and modify biology.

• Culture, biology and individual behaviour work together with respect to food choice.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Culture food choice and potential benefits to other populations

• Mediterranean diet led to attempts at changing trends in food choice in the latter half of the 20th century in many industrialized countries.

• These can be perceived as an attempt to use one food culture in other cultures.

• Keeping aspects of the Mediterranean diet and encouraging its consumption in other cultures may be a useful public health nutrition strategy.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Cultural influences and the rise of the global marketplace

• In the early 1980s it was stated that, with a global marketplace, products, including foods, were becoming standardized worldwide and that consumers would develop homogeneous preferences.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Cultural influences and the rise of the global marketplace

• This view has been modified and there is increasing agreement that certain marketing limits to different degrees, depending on the market, the product, the company and the environment.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Cultural integrity

• Evidence from some of the rapidly industrializing countries of Asia provides examples of resistance to homogeneous food preferences. (Korean, Malaysian).

• Certain cultural cuisines appear to resist changes while others, even in the same country, appear to be more open to modification.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Acculturation

• Acculturation defined as “the process of cultural change from contact between cultural groups”.

• The process of migration demonstrates how food choices can resist or be influenced by cultural change.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Acculturation

• Several studies of acculturation have assessed migrants to Western cultures, e.g. Korean migrants living in USA consumed more “American” food if their acculturation was greater.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

• e.g. South Asian females, Italian.’

• Changes in food intakes occurred among those who had migrated at an earlier age.

• US cultural effects are stronger than changes in economic status.

• Age and generation appear to be key factors and fit with the principles of early contact and availability.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Media and advertising• The media, especially TV, may be one of the

most important sources of information about food.

• The content of TV food advertising is for high-fat or high-sugar foods.

• Food advertising is known to increase children’s knowledge of brand names, to foster positive attitudes to the food and to change beliefs.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

• Public health messages delivered to young children with adult support of the positive value of more “healthy” foods have been shown to decrease consumption of less healthy snacks by young children.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Food access and availability

• Adequate food at reasonable prices is necessary if people are to have access to a healthy, balanced diet.

• Access can be influenced by area of residence, car ownership, public transport, and shopping and storage facilities.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Food access and availability

• Changes in food accessibility and pricing have been shown to lead to increases in fruit and salad purchases, and decreases in selection of crisps.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Social influences on food choice

• Food habits are generally developed and maintained because they are effective, practical and important behaviours in a particular culture.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Socio-demographic factors

• Age• Gender• Social class• Ethnicity • Marital status• Household composition• Psychosocial factors

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

• Age will effect dietary intake through a range of biological processes (growth).

• In early childhood, social construction of meanings about food by teachers and pupils intersects with policy within schools.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

• In adolescence, emotions (anger) may expression through eating habits by spitting and throwing or physiological responses of vomiting.

• For older years, access, cost and quality of food leading food habits, resulting in a difference between stated food beliefs and actual eating patterns.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

• Men having higher intake of meat products and sugar, and lower intake of fruit, vegetables and low-fat products than women.

• Women’s intakes of micronutrients (iron, zinc, folate) are often deficient, particularly when biological requirements are greater.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

• Biological, social, psychological and behavioural factors associated with gender appear to interact to influence the intake of different food and nutrients.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

• People from higher social class and higher educational level tend to have healthier diets (higher intakes of fruit, fruit juices, lean meat, oily fish, wholemeal products) compared with manual workers (higher intakes of energy, and lower intake of fruits and vegetables).

• The amount of money to spend on food are important factors in food choice (meat, fruit and vegetables).

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

Social factors at the household level

• Eating behaviours are linked to social grouping (e.g. households may struggle to achieve current dietary recommendations if different family members eat different things at different times).

• Mothers more influence than other family

members to control over food activities in the home and attendance at mealtimes.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji

• Family eating habits influenced by cultural patterns in preference and consumption, availability of foods in the home and genetic factors.

• A positive association between the number of people present on meal and snack occasions may lead to higher energy intakes.

Dr. Dina Qahwaji