Social And Cultural Perspectives In Nutrition

Abstract: A biocultural approach to nutrition emphasizes the impact of the social sciences on food intake. Purchasing, preferences and ideology are heavily influenced by social, economic, political, and cultural processes. Food consumption surveys, data collection and analysis (including types of dietary surveys), the interview, statistical methods, and reliability of methods are discussed. Time and cost factors have led to new approaches in dietary assessment such as scalogram analysis, food scores, and quality indices. Widely divergent dietary patterns of Americans are discussed by ethnic group: Puerto Ricans, Black Americans, Mexican Americans, American Indians (several tribes), and Asian Americans (Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipinos, Hawaiians). Food habit modification is complex due to a rigid structure of social values that determine behavior. Nutrition/communication specialists are needed for research activities, mass media, governmental nutrition action programs and mandated nutrition education programs. Ethics of nutrition intervention are an important concern in affecting dietary changes. Each chapter is followed by a lengthy bibliography. (rkm).

There are not many areas that are more rooted in both the biological and social-cultural aspects of humankind than diet and nutrition. Throughout human history nutrition has been shaped by political, economic, and cultural forces, and in turn, access to food and nutrition has altered the course and direction of human societies. Using a biocultural approach, the contributors to this volume investigate the ways in which food is both an essential resource fundamental to human health and an expression of human culture and society. The chapters deal with aspects of diet and human nutrition through space and time and span prehistoric, historic, and contemporary societies spread over various geographical regions, including Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia to highlight how biology and culture are inextricably linked.

As someone who was trained in the clinical sdentific tradition it took me several years to start to appreciate that food was more than a collection of nutrients, and that most people did not make their choices of what to eat on the biologically rational basis of nutritional composition. This realiza tion helped tobring me to an understanding of why people didn't always eat what (I believed) was good for them, and why the patients I had seen in hospital as often as not had failed to follow the dietary advice I had so confidently given. When I entered the field of health education I quickly discovered the farnaus World Health Organization definition of health as being a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease. Health was a triangle -and I had been guilty of virtu ally ignoring two sides of that triangle. As I became involved in practical nutrition education initiatives the deficiencies of an approach based on giving information about nutrition and physical health became more and more apparent. The children whom I saw in schools knew exactly what to say when asked to describe a nutritious diet: they could recite the food guide and list rich sources of vitamins and minerals; but none of this intellectual knowledge was reflected in their own actual eating habits.

Revised for the first time in ten years, the second edition of Nutritional Anthropology: Biocultural Perspectives on Food and Nutrition continues to blend biological and cultural approaches to this dynamic discipline. While this revision maintains the format and philosophy that grounded the first edition, the text has been revamped and revitalized with new and updated readings, sections, introductions, and pedagogical materials that cover current global food trade and persistent problems of hunger in equal measure. Unlike any other book on the market, Nutritional Anthropology fuses issues past and present, local and global, and biological and cultural in order to give students a comprehensive foundation in food and nutrition.

Food, Culture, and Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research (formerly The Journal for the Study of Food and Society, launched in 1996) is the official peer-reviewed journal of the Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS). ASFS is an international organization dedicated to exploring the complex relationships among food, culture, and society from numerous disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as in the world of food beyond the academy. It brings to bear the highest standards of research and scholarship in all aspects of food studies and encourages vigorous debate on a wide range of topics, such as:cross-cultural perspectives on eating behaviorsgender and the food systemrecipes, cookbooks, and menus as textsphilosophical and religious perspectives on food and the bodysocial construction of culinary practices, beliefs, and traditionspolitics of the family mealdietary transitionspsychological, cultural, and social determinants of tastemethodological issues in food studiesmalnutrition, hunger, and food securitycommodity chain and foodshed analysisfood in fiction, film, and artcomparative food historysocial and cultural dimensions of food technologiespolitical economy of the global food systemfood studies pedagogyThe journal also publishes original reviews of relevant books, films, videos, exhibitions and a special section on perspectives on teaching.

This collection of essays examines obesity not as an objective medical or psychological problem, but as a subjective social and cultural phenomenon. The contributors take a cross-cultural perspective, examining both the negative casting of obesity in developed countries and the traditional view of obesity as a positive characteristic in subsistence societies which is threatened by the dominance of Western culture.

This book takes a transdisciplinary approach and considers multisectoral actions, integrating health, agriculture and environmental sector issues to comprehensively explore the topic of sustainable diets. The team of international authors informs readers with arguments, challenges, perspectives, policies, actions and solutions on global topics that must be properly understood in order to be effectively addressed. They position issues of sustainable diets as central to the Earth's future. Presenting the latest findings, they: - Explore the transition to sustainable diets within the context of sustainable food systems, addressing the right to food, and linking food security and nutrition to sustainability. - Convey the urgency of coordinated action, and consider how to engage multiple sectors in dialogue and joint research to tackle the pressing problems that have taken us to the edge, and beyond, of the planet's limits to growth. - Review tools, methods and indicators for assessing sustainable diets. - Describe lessons learned from case studies on both traditional food systems and current dietary challenges. As an affiliated project of the One Planet Sustainable Food Systems Programme, this book provides a way forward for achieving global and local targets, including the Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition commitments. This resource is essential reading for scientists, practitioners, and students in the fields of nutrition science, food science, environmental sciences, agricultural sciences, development studies, food studies, public health and food policy.