Nutritional sociology
The nutritional sociology or sociology of food , sociology of nutrition is a special consumer sociology that deals with the social component of nutrition . Research fields are differences in cultures, changes in eating habits in history and their reasons, prognoses and recommendations for politics with regard to nutrition.
Basic approach
What people eat and what not, in which form of preparation and at which meals, depends on society and varies in different cultures. Since the metabolism of the human organism functions omnivorously, a decision can be made about which foods should be produced or consumed from an existing range. Both conscious and socially structurally unconscious reasons can play a role in individual situations. Various cognitive and psychosocial factors play in the concrete decision situation which is as is nourished, as important as economic and health variables, habits, personal taste and emotional state. Caregivers and the social environment also play an important role, for example by conveying a certain ideal of beauty . This also includes the consumption of exquisite food and drinks. The consumer behavior resulting from subjective preferences does not have to be optimal from an objective nutritional perspective.
Eating behavior can be recorded, statistically evaluated and implemented in models. Consumption patterns that can be read off from this can be sociologically analyzed and interpreted.
The Ethnology , such as Audrey Richards , has relevant here Posts developed, where there are multiple overlaps nutritional sociology, as the German-language introduction book "Culinary Anthropology - contributions to the science of its own, strange and globalized food cultures" shows together in the ethnologists and sociologists published the current state of research (2018). The term "culinary anthropology" in turn derives from a work by the well in sociology strong rezepierten anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss from the 1968 book chapter entitled "Petit traité d'ethnologie culinaire" (dt. A small treatise in culinary anthropology ) published.
Sociological classics on nutritional sociology
Nutrition has been a recurring theme in sociology from the start, although not one that has been excellently worked out. The article by Georg Simmel "Sociology of Meals" from 1910, in which he works out aspects of communal eating and drinking together, is considered to be groundbreaking . In "About the Process of Civilization", Norbert Elias describes how table manners and the use of eating utensils (cutlery) gradually developed over the centuries, and Pierre Bourdieu also explains in his main work "The Subtle Differences" how food trading and eating habits habitualize as cultural capital is used.
Complexity of Diet in the Present
Today's society is a globalized society in which there is no longer just one single food culture or regional kitchens that are strictly separated from one another. Instead, according to the nutritional sociologist Daniel Kofahl, a situation has arisen in which the most varied of nutritional cultures come into contact with one another everywhere and a uniform nutritional paradigm can no longer be identified. Different nutritional cultures and styles now compete with one another, try to displace one another or form hybrid forms. A clearly "best form" of nutrition can no longer be determined, since, for example, the healthiest is rarely the tastiest and vice versa. As a result, people have to deal with complex decisions regarding their diet, which, among other things, does not remain without consequences for professionalized nutrition science and nutrition advice.
Food poverty
A central theme nutritional sociological research is the food poverty . A distinction is made between "absolute nutritional poverty" and "relative nutritional poverty". Above all, absolute food poverty is a problem that occurs permanently almost only in countries in the global south. However, even in countries in the global north, temporary absolute nutritional poverty is increasingly being diagnosed. The sociologists Stefan Selke and Sabine Pfeiffer refer to established institutions like "Die Tafeln " or " Soup kitchens ". The two sociologists also use the example of Germany to show how relative food poverty is increasing. This is primarily a matter of "alimentary participation", i.e. the possibility of being able to participate in the culinary and gastronomic culture of contemporary society in a self-determined manner through appropriate financial purchasing power.
Extreme situations
Even disasters such as famine caused strong social: They are always acute conflicts over distribution in times of scarcity , where the starving subject ( see also. Usury ).
Material culture of nutrition
The use of certain cutlery is not physiologically compulsory, except to reduce the food to bite-sized before consumption. In Norbert Elias ' On the Process of Civilization there is an illuminating discussion of the change in meaning of the knife and the introduction of the fork . The influence of socio-cultural factors on the use of cutlery can be seen, among other things, from the fact that only a minority of people worldwide use eating utensils (fork, spoon, knife, chopsticks). The majority of eating cultures do not contain any eating tools or regulations for using them. Instead, for most of human history, and even today, people around the world eat mostly by hand.
See also
- Engel's law
- Drinking culture , eating culture , table manners
- Hunger , famine
- Alcohol sickness
- Vegetarianism , veganism
- Trend foods
literature
- Eva Barlösius : Sociology of Eating. A social and cultural science introduction to nutritional research. Verlag Juventa, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-7799-1464-6 .
- Jean-Claude Kaufmann: Cooking passion: sociology of cooking and eating. Uvk, Konstanz 2006.
- Daniel Kofahl: The Complexity of Nutrition in Contemporary Society. Kassel University Press, Kassel 2015, ISBN 978-3-86219-553-4 .
- Daniel Kofahl, Sebastian Schellhaas: Culinary Ethnology. Contributions to the science of own, foreign and globalized food cultures. Transcript, Bielefeld 2018. ISBN 978-3-8376-3539-3 .
- Claude Levi-Strauss : Petit traité d'ethnologie culinaire (Eng. A small treatise in culinary ethnology). In: Mythologica III. The origin of table manners. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1986. ISBN 3-518-27769-3 .
- Sabine Pfeiffer: The repressed reality: Food poverty in Germany: Hunger in the affluent society . Springer, Berlin / New York 2014, ISBN 978-3-658-04664-4 .
- Simon Reitmeier: Why we like what we eat: A study on the socialization of nutrition. transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2013, ISBN 978-3-8376-2335-2 .
- Stefan Selke (Hrsg.): Tafeln In Deutschland: Aspects of a social movement between food redistribution and poverty intervention. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-531-18005-2 .
- Monika Setzwein: On the sociology of eating. Taboo - prohibition - avoidance. VS Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3-8100-1797-3 .
- Monika Setzwein: Nutrition - Body - Gender: On the social construction of gender in a culinary context. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2004.
- Hans Jürgen Teuteberg (Ed.): The revolution at the dining table. New studies on food culture in the 19th and 20th centuries Century. Verlag Steiner, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-515-08447-9 .