Population Research Centre, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
Soc Sci Med. 2021 Mar;272:113701. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113701. Epub 2021 Jan 15.
Often, food practices are evaluated in terms of their healthiness or lack thereof, but fulfilling food practices based on other values and influenced by family members' capabilities are overlooked. This study analyses food practices in families with low socio-economic status, and aims to explain how family households come to prioritise one food practice over another. We conducted an ethnographic study using the capability approach as an analytical framework. In-depth interviews and observations concerning food patterns and health-related choices with family members from three generations were analysed. Two dimensions of fulfilling food practices which emerged from our study are having a healthy as well as harmonious meal. The families under study tended to prioritise having harmonious meals over having healthy meals, despite the attempts by mothers to serve healthy meals. This choice can be understood from the perspective of capabilities, such as being able to enjoy meals, eating what everybody else eats in the region, avoiding conflicts, creating good relationships with children and serving and organising meals with ease. Within the cultural environment, there prevailed a tendency not to care too much about nutritional outcomes, which also supported the preference for harmonious over healthy meals. In the decision about whether to have a healthy or a harmonious meal, children's agency often outweighed the voices of parents and grandparents. The capability approach helped unravel the complexity of family food practices and the role of intergenerational family dynamics in a setting of low socio-economic status. Acknowledging the multi-dimensional nature of food practices, and including dimensions beyond the food domain, such as harmony at the dinner table, contribute to a better understanding of this complexity. It also helps to shed new light on opportunity deprivation in households, for example in relation to agency, which should be accounted for in health interventions.
通常，人们会根据食物是否健康来评估饮食行为，但却忽视了基于其他价值观并受到家庭成员能力影响的饮食行为。本研究分析了社会经济地位较低的家庭中的饮食行为，旨在解释家庭如何优先选择一种饮食行为而不是另一种。我们采用能力方法作为分析框架进行了一项民族志研究。通过对三代家庭成员的饮食模式和与健康相关的选择进行深入访谈和观察，对数据进行了分析。本研究中出现的两种满足饮食行为的维度是：健康的饮食和和谐的用餐。尽管母亲试图提供健康的饮食，但研究中的家庭往往更倾向于优先选择和谐的用餐而不是健康的饮食。从能力的角度可以理解这种选择，例如能够享受用餐、吃当地其他人吃的食物、避免冲突、与孩子建立良好关系以及轻松地供应和组织膳食。在文化环境中，人们普遍不太关注营养结果，这也支持了对和谐用餐的偏好超过健康用餐。在决定是要健康饮食还是和谐用餐时，孩子的能动性往往超过了父母和祖父母的声音。能力方法有助于揭示家庭饮食行为的复杂性以及代际家庭动态在社会经济地位较低环境中的作用。承认饮食行为的多维性质，并包括饮食领域以外的维度，例如餐桌上的和谐，有助于更好地理解这种复杂性。它还有助于揭示家庭中机会剥夺的新情况，例如能动性，这在健康干预措施中应该得到考虑。
