Sociologic study of food habits--a review. I. Diversity in diet and scalogram analysis.

Scalogram analysis (Guttman scaling) organizes descriptive data into a form which is meaningful to the nutritionist and the sociologist in the study of the diversity in, and variation of, family food patterns. Scalogram analysis avoids the use of measures that are "description bound" or culturally biased by providing a means of using a higher level of abstraction in studying food habits. Scalogram analysis can be useful, both in planning and in evaluating programs of nutrition education, but until this tool becomes more familiar to nutrition educators and its effectiveness is evaluated in actual situations, it will remain only potentially useful.