Understanding Food Habits: a Sociological Perspective 7.5 credits

About the course

There is more information on food and nutrition available now than ever before and yet food behaviour often deviates from scientific advice. Despite good intentions, interference with or attempts to control people's food habits can elicit strong reactions. Clashes may occur between cultures and there is a tendency towards conflict around food. To understand these conflicts and dilemmas, food and/or health professionals must recognise how eating habits are formed and the factors that influence them.

In this course, food choice and eating behaviour are explored using the perspectives of class, gender, ethnicity, age, socio-economic status, life course, religion, and geographic region. The complex interplay of agency and structure is applied to real life contexts through assignments dealing with availability, prevailing food and health discourses, and personal/professional development.

The course is aimed at both professionals and individuals who encounter food dilemmas.The course includes analytical tools to identify the roots of potential problems and understand different views on food and eating, thereby developing an ability to act as mediators or sounding boards in challenging situations. Possible target groups are preschool teachers, psychologists, catering staff, the medical professions, and other caregivers.

Part 1. Food as Symbol, Sustenance and Socialization, 5 Credits
This part of the course covers factors which influence food habits, such as gender, age, ethnicity, class, social status, life course transitions, religion, convenience and context. These factors are viewed in connection to symbolic meanings, power relations and food norms.

Part 2. Food culture and professional or personal development, 2.5 Credits
In this part of the course, the student analyses real life situations, current discourses and their own professional or personal views on food and eating with the help of the sociological tools offered in part 1.