Food Policy and Food Governance – Changing Behaviours

Lake, Amelia; Midgley, Jane

doi:10.1002/9781118786611.ch11

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Our food choices therefore both determine, and are determined by, our food environments, making them a critical point of intervention in food-related health and wellbeing. Preparing, sharing and eating food is both an everyday occurrence and a socio-culturally complex phenomenon (36) it is determined through multi-scalar national and international policies and governance-driven decisions (37) . Our food environment mediates our eating behaviours through the mechanisms of availability and accessibility of food.…”

Section: Changing Behavioursmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opportunities to improve population health: possibilities for healthier food environments

et al. 2023

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The recent Covid-19 pandemic highlighted stark social inequalities, notably around access to food, nutrition and to green or blue space (i.e. outdoor spaces with vegetation and water). Consequently, obesity is socio-economically patterned by this inequality; and while the environmental drivers of obesity are widely acknowledged, there is currently little upstream intervention. We know that living with obesity contributes to increasing health inequalities, and places healthcare systems under huge strain. Our environment could broadly be described obesogenic, in the sense of supporting unhealthful eating patterns and sedentary behaviour. Evidence points to the existence of nearly 700 UK obesity policies, all of which have had little success. Obesity prevention and treatment has focused on educational and behavioural interventions targeted at individual consumers. A more sustainable approach would be to try and change the environments that promote less healthy eating and high energy intake as well as sedentary behaviour. Approaches which modify the environment have the potential to assist in the prevention of this complex condition. This review paper focuses on the role of wider food environments or foodscapes. While there is an imperfect evidence base relating to the role of the foodscape in terms of the obesity crisis, policy, practice, civic society and industry must work together and take action now, in areas where current evidence suggests change is required. Despite the current cost-of-living crisis, shaping the foodscape to better support healthful eating decisions has the potential to be a key aspect of a successful obesity prevention intervention.

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Section: Changing Behavioursmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opportunities to improve population health: possibilities for healthier food environments

et al. 2023

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“…Considering eating in terms of the practices involved implies a view of healthy eating which goes beyond nutrient swallowing (Crotty, 1993) to understand situated performances of eating and the web of practices through which foods are consumed. Healthy eating habits are built up through repeated embodied performances in particular material and social landscapes which they cannot be comprehended without (Lake & Midgley, 2010). For instance, Steinberg suggests that a decrease in cooking and cooking skills must be understood as part of a wider shifting of practices constituting modern individualistic Americans (Steinberg, 1998).…”

Section: What Is Healthy Eating? a Comparison Of Nutrient-focused And Practice-based Understandingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cooking up an injustice: A critical examination of the role of cooking programs in reducing health inequalities

Kesteren

Evans²

2021

Crit Diet

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The way we eat is one of the biggest causes of preventable illness and death, particularly for those living in more deprived areas. Public health interventions often include courses teaching cooking ‘from scratch’ as an affordable means of dietary improvement, but this paper questions the effectiveness of such programs. Using an in-depth case study of a leading healthy cooking programme, including ethnographic observations of seven cooking classes and interviews with 35 participants and three members of staff, we show that the impact of this programme was limited by its adherence to conventional ‘nutrient-focused’ framings of healthy eating. Teaching based on this framing created confusion by separating nutrients from foods, hampered embodied learning of skills and ultimately failed to address how learnings could be integrated into the everyday lives of participants Unable to engage with inequities in access, preparation time, food environments or other sociocultural influences on eating habits, courses built on similarly nutricentric foundations will never be able to address the major barriers to healthy eating faced by their target participants. As an alternative, we propose that cooking courses grounded in a more ‘practice-based’ understanding of healthy eating would be more effective at changing dietary behaviours, especially in areas of higher deprivation.

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“…This political dynamic does not address larger power struggles within the food system nor does it acknowledge individual socioeconomic barriers. This approach also neglects the fact that food habits and food choices are behaviors embedded within particular socialcultural settings (Lake & Midgley, 2010). Although generated out of a biological need, what and how we eat is socially, economically, and culturally defined (Guthman, 2002).…”

Section: From a "Healthy Eating" Approach To Considerations Of Current Food Environmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

From “Healthy Eating” to a Holistic Approach to Current Food Environments

Traverso-Yépez

Hunter

2016

SAGE Open

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The consumption of the industrial diet—characterized by highly processed, low-nutrient foods and the reduced intake of produce in its natural state, such as fruits and vegetables—is generating a large number of health and environmental concerns in the developed world. In the meantime, the public health response to food-related health issues typically focuses on healthy eating, despite the growing amount of research showing the complexity of food environments. In this article, we discuss the limitations and fragmented perspective of current “healthy eating” strategies and the obvious disconnect between public health interventions and broader food environments. We outline the transformation of food environments in recent decades and how this is shaped by shifting ways of life and forms of governance built on neoliberal principles, which in turn influence individuals’ food practices. By availing of critical social theory, we suggest that the potential for change should involve a systemic, ecological understanding of the complexities involved, exposing the interdependencies within broader socioeconomic, cultural, and political contexts and current food systems processes and environments.

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Food Policy and Food Governance – Changing Behaviours

Cited by 4 publications

References 30 publications

Opportunities to improve population health: possibilities for healthier food environments

Opportunities to improve population health: possibilities for healthier food environments

Cooking up an injustice: A critical examination of the role of cooking programs in reducing health inequalities

From “Healthy Eating” to a Holistic Approach to Current Food Environments

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