Studying food tastes among young adults using Bourdieu's theory

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to study the relationship between social position and food tastes. The empirical data stem from a survey carried out in 1991 on 703 people aged 23–26 years. Bourdieu's theory of the relationship between social position and consumption was used as a theoretical framework. Bourdieu attacks the position often expressed by economists that consumers are similar in most respects except for their economic capital. He introduced the concept ‘cultural capital’ when describing different consumption practices and emphasizes the relationship between gender and food tastes. The social position variables in this study include economic and cultural capital, and gender. Participants were asked to evaluate exotic, healthy, filling, inexpensive and traditional food. Two dimensions of food orientations were observed: food as form and food as function. Economic capital was of importance concerning the costs of food and its filling functions. Groups rich in cultural capital were more interested in healthy and exotic food and less interested in filling food than those possessing less cultural capital. Women were more concerned about healthy food than men. Cultural capital had an independent effect when economic capital was constant.

The use of Pierre Bourdieu's distinction concepts in scientific articles studying food and eating: A narrative review

“…Gender was well defined as an analytical category in some quantitative studies that investigated food consumption and taste (Øygard, 2000;Tivadar & Luthar, 2005). A gender-based perspective was heavily used in the works that investigated the body and eating.…”

Family affluence and cultural capital as indicators of social inequalities in adolescent’s eating behaviours: a population-based survey

“…They also showed that taste preferences mediate differences in fruit and vegetable consumption between genders. Øygard [62] argued that food preferences differ between social groups, and that expensive food has a symbolic value that can be used to represent higher cultural capital, a perspective supported by Abel [16]. These points may explain our finding that the FAS, representing material capital, is an important predictor of consumption of fruit and vegetables but not of sweets and soft drinks, while number of books, representing cultural capital, is the strongest predictor of food preferences and meal frequency.…”

Modeling the factors affecting rural consumers’ purchase of organic and free-range produce: A case study of consumers’ from the Island of Arran in Scotland, UK

“…Therefore rural consumers are a large and important segment of the population which is understudied. Furthermore, attitudes to food, farming and shopping have been found to differ between urban and rural consumers (McEachern and Warnaby, 2006;Oygard, 2000;Weatherell et al, 2003). For example, Weatherell et al (2003) found that urban and rural consumers differ in their perceptions of meat quality and their awareness and perception of farmers' markets.…”