Food ideals, food rules and the subjective construction of a healthy diet

Abstract

The healthfulness of the populations’ diets has long been a concern in Scotland. However, despite policies aimed at improving the healthfulness of people’s diet, it remains poor. The failure of these policies to bring about desired changes is partly because the relationship between dietary advice, understandings of it and the healthfulness of food practices is complex. The Scottish Government funded a phenomenological study of thirty-one adults to understand the populations’ food practices and, drawing on interviews and food diaries, this paper reports emergent findings that illustrate how some participants construct and maintain food practices they perceive to be healthful and appear to show consistency with dietary guidelines whilst others struggle. Research data were thematically analyzed and interviews revealed participants’ reported food rules that appeared to show consistencies with nutritional guidelines. Interviews and food diaries also revealed that participants broke their food rules which resulted in less healthful eating patterns. The results suggest that those participants who routinize rules for breaking food rules achieved eating patterns that they perceived to be healthier than those who did not.

Keywords:

• Food ideals
• food rules
• eating patterns
• healthfulness
• phenomenological approach

Notes

1 Further references include (Rozin 2005; Mulgan 2010).

2 Food Standards Scotland is a non-ministerial department of the Scottish Government. It is responsible for food safety, food standards, nutrition, food labelling and meat inspection in Scotland.

3 Further references include Forero and Smith (2010).

4 Further references include: Lupton (1994, 1998); Mennell, Murcott and van Otterloo (1994); Warde and Martens (2000); Drewnowski and Darmon (2005); Backett-Milburn et al. (2010); Wills et al. (2011).

5 Further references include: Mennell, Murcott and van Otterloo (1994); Murcott (1995); Caplan (1997); Valentine (1999); Little, Ilbery, and Watts (2009); Metcalfe et al. (2009); Mellor, Blake, and Crane (2010); Tobler, Visschers and Siegrist (2011); Wills et al. (2011); Milošević et al. (2012); Skafida (2013).

6 Further references include (Puhl and Schwartz 2003).

7 Further references include (Puhl and Schwartz 2003; Brown et al. 2012).

8 Healthfulness refers to participants perceptions.

9 A similar approach has also been adopted in studies of: obesity (Ludwig, Cox and Ellahi 2011); being vegetarian/vegan (Edwards 2013); decadent eating practices (Tan 201363); dietary changes of international students (Saccone and Obeng 2015); picky eating amongst adults (Kauer et al. 2015).

10 Weetabix is a brand of wholegrain breakfast cereal.

11 This implies that the participant adhered to their food rules.

12 Further references include: Kantar Worldwide (2013); Aggarwal et al. (2014); Guthrie, Mancino and Lin (2015).

13 Further references include: Lupton (1994, 1998); Mennell, Murcott and van Otterloo (1994); Caplan (1997); Valentine (1999); Warde and Martens (2000); Drewnowski and Darmon (2005); Little, Ilbery, and Watts (2009); Metcalfe et al. (2009); Backett-Milburn et al. (2010); Mellor, Blake, and Crane (2010); Aronsson and Gottzén (2011); Forero and Smith (2010); Tobler, Visschers, and Siegrist (2011); Wills et al. (2011); Milošević et al. (2012); Skafida (2013); De Morais Sato et al. (2014); Pinard et al. (2015).

14 Further references include: Warde and Martens (2000); Dibsdall, Lambert and Frewer (2002); Ludwig, Cox and Ellahi (2011); Tan (2013); Welsh (2013).

Additional information

Funding

The authors are grateful to the Scottish Government for funding the work from which this paper was developed through its 2011-16 RESAS Strategic Research Programme.