Gender Differences in Food Choice and Dietary Intake in Modern Western Societies (original) (raw)
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In this encyclopedia article, I discuss 3 forms of food behaviors and how they are both affected by and constitute gender norms: food production, food preparation, and food consumption. A link to the online version of the Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics at the Springer Reference site is provided below. The multi-volume print edition will be released in October of 2014.
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The social construction of overweight has meant that dieting is an experience of being a woman in Western society. Health promotion fails to counteract the cult of slimness and reinforces medicalized notions of the “problem” of overweight, legitimizing unnecessary dieting practices. The limitations of the health promotion approach are examined through medicalization and healthism critiques. The negative consequences for women of dieting to control weight are highlighted in this article through the concepts of gendered food and gendered bodies. The issue of gender and dieting is used here to illustrate the need for interdisciplinary and qualitative approaches to the study of food and nutrition practices, before intervening to change those practices. An examination of the social implications of health promotion in the area of weight control exposes the need for a moratorium on such strategies until a database of qualitative research is established through sociological studies on food and nutrition.
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Bread for the World Institute provides policy analysis on hunger and strategies to end it. The Institute educates its network, opinion leaders, policy makers and the public about hunger in the United States and abroad. • Gender inequality is linked to higher rates of child mortality and malnutrition. • Improvements in women’s access to resources, ability to make independent decisions, and level of education are critical to better nutrition, both for young children and the whole family. • In some societies, girls are far more likely than boys to be stunted by malnutrition. A combination of efforts to improve agriculture, programs focused on better nutrition for pregnant women and children younger than 2, and initiatives to empower women as agents of change will help reduce gender disparities in household food consumption. • Using a gender perspective—including tools such as gender analysis, gendersensitive strategies and activities, and gender audits—will make programs aimed at impro...
The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2019
In many parts of the world the relationship between food and health is predominately defined by a nutritional and medical discourse today. This discourse focuses on food intake as a core determinant of individual bodily and mental health, prevention of under or overweight, and of future diseases. Sociologists and other social scientists, however, have a broader understanding of the relationship between food and health and emphasize how cultural meanings and beliefs as well as social structures and institutions such as education, media, law, politics, and economy shape food practices. The aim of sociological research, reviewed here, is to understand the conditions of possibility for the emergence and prominence of a medical nutrition discourse on food and health and what it tells us about contemporary society.