A Conversation About Food: The Research I Conducted on Happiness and the Results I Found
Through my Honors Anthropology class, I wrote the following paper examining the interaction between people’s relationship to food and their overall happiness. I hoped to answer questions like:
what defines health, happiness, and food?
how do different people’s cultures impact these definitions?
how do our eating habits reflect our true selves?
Introduction
Food is a part of everyone’s lives and culture. As someone who has grown up with food at the center of every social gathering and family tradition, it intrigues me to study the way in which food embodies meaning in other people’s lives. I grew up baking and cooking all the time, family dinners were mandatory, and the idea of waste-not-want-not was evident at every meal. With this background in mind, I was particularly interested in the subject of nutrition and diets and how young adults develop their perceptions of diets.
As part of my research I interviewed college students. For most, college is the first time individuals experience true freedom of choice, specifically from their families. For this reason, I was interested in interviewing first year college students about their food backgrounds and how their food backgrounds from before college have influenced their eating patterns now. I believe these eating patterns are interesting given that they reflect more choice and control over what these individuals choose to eat and do not eat and may reflect how they choose to present or identify themselves in a social context. For the sake of privacy, I will refer to the individuals I interviewed by the first letter of their names.
Through these interviews and other articles that we read over the course of this class, I explored this concept of nutrition and diets and noticed a few patterns emerge; Among them were ideas of control and release as well as balance and moderation. These ideals appeared to stem directly from the way individuals were raised, including their family and respective cultures. As it relates to bodily health, individuals interviewed also seemed to believe that health reflected choice and without being prompted, most individuals implied that they lived a healthy life. Synthesizing these patterns with ideas from the articles it can be argued that we establish ourselves in society through the food we choose to eat. Moreover, we eat what is “healthy” to reflect our good moral standing and either live by or acknowledge our cultural and familial eating values as a way to identify with these groups.
Defining Health Through Control, Release, and Moderation
Robert Crawford in “A Cultural Account Of ‘Health’: Control, Release, and the Social Body” discusses attitudes towards health in terms of control and release. He describes health through the lens of control as “almost equivalent to pursuing health through adopting the appropriate discipline activities or controls” (Crawford, 1984, p. 66). In this way, health is defined as monitoring oneself and staying disciplined. On the other hand, Crawford explains the release definition of health which essentially defines health as freedom and lack of discipline over what one consumes. Crawford argues that both lenses of health are conflicting ways in which people define health and define themselves in a social context.
Through the interview with B, she touched on both definitions of health when describing her parents. When talking about her dad she explained that “he definitely pushed me towards athletics and not even like diets per say but, just trying to make healthier choices”. Therefore, in line with the control definition of health, B’s dad defines health as having the discipline to make “healthy” eating choices and participate in athletics. This is similar to the Cree peoples, a native tribe, and their definition of health and wellbeing. Their definition of health includes “eat[ing] the right foods, keep[ing] warm and perform[ing] the activities needed to accomplish one’s goals, whatever they may be” (Adelson, 1998, p. 11). By defining “right”, this definition implies that there is a correct way to eat and live and thus there is a discipline to living well according to the Cree people. Moreover, by eating these “right” foods, Cree individuals identify themselves as healthy and therefore morally “good”. This idea of health being tied to morality is further explained by Metzl in his book, Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality. Metzl (2010) links health with morality with the example of when someone says, “‘Smoking is bad for your health,’ when what we really mean is, ‘you are a bad person because you smoke’” (p. 2). Therefore, one’s choices in regards to health reflect their morality in the eyes of society. In other words, an individual’s choice to be healthy reflects that the individual is a “good” person.
However, as observed from the interviews, discipline is not the sole definer of health or morality. In contrast to her dad’s control attitude towards health, when explaining her mom’s attitude towards health and food B talked about how her mom “understood that food is something to be enjoyed, not like being over-stuffed with or not eaten enough of”. In this quote both attitudes of control and release are present. To one extent, the belief that “food is something to be enjoyed” follows the release definition of health as she suggests that one should enjoy food for what it is and not worry about controlling themselves. However, B’s also mentioned that her mom talks about food as something that should be eaten in moderation when she implies that there is a “right” amount of food to eat by pointing out that food is not something to be “over-stuffed with or not eaten enough of”. When asked about how she defined health, another individual, J described a similar dual definition of health in terms of control and release. Although J clearly answered that she made an effort to eat what she considered “healthy” foods, she also added that “a little chocolate never hurts either”. The way in which she referred to chocolate was very much through the release definition of health. She implied that eating chocolate was breaking the discipline of a healthy controlled diet, yet this same act of eating chocolate also followed her definition of health.
Although I agree with Crawford that the control and release definitions of health exist, I would also argue that these definitions are too extreme at times and therefore, there must exists a third definition of health that falls in between these two extremes that I would call moderation. Often referred to as balance, moderation is a definition of health that allows for aspects of control and release. In respects to control, moderation would say that one must monitor or keep track of what they are eating. However, unlike the control definition of health, moderation allows for the individual to occasionally deviate from their disciplined nutrition plan; in fact, moderation encourages these slight deviations. These deviations are the release aspect of the moderation definition of health. Therefore to follow the moderation definition of health, individuals must deviate from their disciplined eating habits from time to time.
Even when health is defined through release and moderation, it appears this implication of health is aligned with being morally good. When J talked about chocolate explaining how “a little never hurts”, she implied that chocolate is not bad, therefore, by choosing to eat just a little, she was not a bad person. Other individuals that were interviewed made similar comments about moderation with implications of morality. In fact, in every interview, when asked “How do you define a healthy meal”, individuals responded with a description about moderation, specifically using the word “balance”. This word “balance” ties to the idea that healthy eating means eating from various food groups; but it was also implied that it meant eating a variety of different foods in general, including foods like chocolate, as described earlier as a form of release. After describing what an example of a health meal, one individual noted how, “if you ate this [the healthy meal she described] every day I’m sure you wouldn’t be very healthy so variety is important too”, further emphasizing this idea of moderation and balance through eating a variety of different foods. By emphasizing that it would not be very healthy to eat the same food everyday, this individual suggests that it would be morally bad to have this type of dietary habit.
Crawford also commented on this pattern noting, “Health clearly represents a status, socially recognized and admired and therefore important to our identities” (Crawford, 1984, p. 64). Thus, as Crawford describes it, health is a vital part of our identities and it also represents morality. To be healthy is to achieve a certain moral standing. This moral standing is highly dictated by one’s definition of health. Regardless, the ways in which individuals define health, whether it is through the control, release, or moderation definition is indicative of the fact that through choice, they are living healthy lives and are thus good moral people.
The Influence of Culture and Family
But where do these perceptions of food come from? It appears that those that were interviewed would point to their family and culture as their primary influencers on their health and dietary habits. Additionally, in practicing or acknowledging these dietary habits, individuals identify with the group that these dietary habits originated from.
It almost comes to no surprise that culture is a strong influencer of an individual’s diet and perception of health; it seems to make sense that the social group a person grows up eating around influences their later dietary choices and attitudes towards food. We see this in cultures such as the Cree people of Australia. The Cree people live by very strict rules on health, in fact they have objective ways of assessing the ‘health value’ of the food they eat. For one, “bush food” or a collection of specific animals hunted on their land is considered significantly healthier than anything non-“bush food”. Additionally, within the category of “bush food” there is a hierarchy with larger “bush”-animals considered to be more nutritious. There doesn’t seem to be a particular logical reason why larger “bush”-animals are considered more nutritious, at least by biological nutrition logic, but culture has dictated these health perceptions and the Cree people live by them. Similarly, when interviewed B discussed how in Jewish culture, when at a guest’s house, one is expected to eat all of their food. She elaborated on this explaining “I would be called ‘too skinny’ the entire time I was there [at her friend’s house] and food would be forced down my throat and if I didn’t clear my plate I would be like very offendedly like frowned upon”. Eating all the food that a host gives to an individual may not fit the biological definition of health, nonetheless, it is regarded as “healthy” according to Jewish culture. Although B doesn’t live by this cultural practice, her acknowledgement of her culture’s food customs reflect her identity with her culture. Because B is Jewish, she is able to show an understanding of this Jewish eating practice since she recognizes that not finishing her food results in being “frowned upon”. Therefore even her rejection of parts of her culture reflect her identification with that same culture through her understanding of cultural eating practices.
A subset to culture is family and in the same way that it makes logical sense that culture would influence dietary habits, the interviews and articles also highlighted family upbringing as an important influencer of an individual’s dietary habits. What is interesting though is the extent to which an upbringing seems to influence an individual’s later diet. It seems that parents in general, whether directly or indirectly, try to shape their children’s eating habits. Garro (2011) comments on this when she explains how through her anthropological research on family dynamics as they relate to food and health, she noticed that “[t]he children are not told that what they want is bad or unreasonable or that they can’t have it; rather, in setting soft limits, the message that one should remain within certain bounds is conveyed” (p. 319). Thus in eating a certain way, parents send a message to their children that they should hold certain values about food. Furthermore, one may postulate that once a young adult leaves their family for the first time and has the choice to eat differently, they may choose to adopt a different diet. However, from the interviews with first year college students, it appears that despite being away from home, they tend to still prefer what they grew up eating. Additionally, they seem to maintain the eating habits that they learned from their families. For example, when Z was asked about her family’s eating habits, she commented that “[her] family was very much like ‘you must eat your food at this time’” and even with the time flexibility and freedom that college allows, Z continues to eat in a relatively scheduled manner, mirroring her family’s dietary habits. Therefore, eating habits may be shaped by the familial environment that an individual develops in. Moreover, the types of food that individuals choose to eat on campus appear to be highly influenced by family and may reflect their identity with their family.
However, this influence can go one of two ways; to some extent it seems like individuals try to mimic their dietary choices once away from their families, but to another extent some individuals point to certain foods that they had “too much of” at home and now make a conscious effort to avoid. For B, she explained that she used to have bread at every meal and so once starting college she started avoiding it in favor of rice. In contrast, Z proclaimed that she had eaten “enough rice for a lifetime” at home and therefore avoids it in college. At the same time, when asked about what their family ate at home, most individuals admitted to eating similar foods when given the choice. For example, Z explained how for dinner every night her family “had choy, just like vegetables, and we had rice, and then we had a type of meat, and then sometimes we would sprinkle in some protein … we always had those staples”. With the exception of rice, Z has continued to structure her diet in college similarly, making an effort to eat a mix of vegetables and protein.
In a way though, it seems these food practices, although sometimes arbitrary, contribute greatly to how individuals define themselves within a culture and their family. By living by their family or culture’s food ideals, or even just by recognizing and understanding these ideals, there is a type of identity with the respective group that is implied. Therefore, food is not only closely connected to individual morality, but it is also tied to one’s identity with a group.
Conclusion
All in all it appears that our eating habits and choices reflect more than just our food preferences. Eating in a way that is defined as “healthy”, whether that be through control, release, or the most popular way, moderation does not change the fact that being “healthy” is associated with good moral standing. Therefore, by practicing “healthy” eating habits, individuals are able to communicate their “goodness” to the rest of their community. Furthermore, living by, or at the very least acknowledging, cultural and familial eating values can be seen as a way in which individuals identify with these respective social groups. Thus, food is much more than a substance that impacts biological health; it is also vital to the way individuals identify themselves within society.
References
Adelson, N. (1998). “Health Beliefs and the Politics of Cree Well-Being.” Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine (5–22).
Crawford, R. (1984). “A Cultural Account Of ‘Health’: Control, Release, and the Social Body.” In McKinlay J. B. (Ed.), Issues in the Political Economy of Health Care (61–103). Tavistock Publications.
Garro, L. C. (2011). “Enacting Ethos, Enacting Health: Realizing Health in the Everyday Life of a California Family of Mexican Descent”. Ethos 39 (300–330)
Metzl, J. M. (2010). “Introduction: Why ‘Against Health’?” In Metzl J. M. & Kirkland A. (Eds.), Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality (1–11). NYU Press.
