Sociology Following Durkheim
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
What’s Eating the Eater? Perspectives on the Everyday Anxiety of Food Consumption in Late Modernity Jacob Östberg Institute of Economic Research Lund Business Press Lund Studies in Economics and Management 75 Lund Business Press Institute of Economic Research P.O. Box 7080, SE-220 07 LUND Sweden ISBN 91-971179-6-X © Jacob Östberg Printed in Sweden KFS AB Lund 2003 Acknowledgements When I started this doctoral project in the fall of 98, the thought that I would one day want to become one of those strange characters spending their days locked away in an academic department out of reach from the ‘real world’ had never crossed my mind. I would even have to confess that I had my mind set on not becoming one of them. Now, after having spent the last few years in that very milieu, I have grown to understand that it is not such a bad place after all. On the contrary, thanks to some special people that I have met over the years, I now aspire to be one of those strange characters in the future. I would like to send my regards here to both the people who have contributed to my dissertation and to the people who have opened my eyes to the charms of academic work. First and foremost I want to thank my supervisor Søren Askegaard for great inspiration, good times, and sometimes supervision. I would also like to thank Magnus Lagnevik for inviting me to join his research project and thus being the one who initially lured me into the academic world. Also, thanks to Magnus for serving as my mentor during my first year as a doctoral student and for continually having been supportive and constructive in commenting on my work, not least at the final seminar. Thanks as well to Per Østergaard who also served as an opponent at the final seminar and whose pertinent comments helped me in finishing this dissertation and to Ulf Elg and Heléne Tjärnemo for participating in earlier seminars. I would also like to direct a special thanks to Anders Bengtsson for being such an irritating chip on my shoulder at times when my work morale was far too low to ever finish this project. Had it not been for Anders’, at times highly exasperating, ability to preach his Smålandish work ethic I wonder if this thesis project would ever have come to an end. Thanks also for helpful discussions along the way – I look forward to more of those but keep your work ethic to yourself in the future… Some of my fellow doctoral students also deserve a special thanks for making my, sometimes seemingly endless, days at the office so much more enjoyable. First and foremost Peter Svensson, whose easy going yet highly intellectual style has been extremely inspirational. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on my manuscript and other more important things along the way. Also, Maria Boklund and Anna Stafsudd – thanks for many interesting discussions but especially for sharing with me the conviction that the right priority is always a cup of coffee. I would also like to thank the faculty and the doctoral students at the Marketing Department at the College of Business at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln for letting me partake in their doctoral program for two great semesters. Who would have guessed that such a generous intellectual environment would be found in the midst of the endless Nebraskan cornfields? An especially warm thank you to Eric Arnould and Linda Price for both being superb hosts and for guiding me in my work. The faculties at the Center for Consumer Science in Gothenburg, the Department of Marketing at SDU Odense and the Department of Service Management at LU Campus Helsingborg should also be thanked for letting me present my research there. Also, thank you to the faculty at David Eccles School of Business in Utah for letting me partake in a doctoral seminar and especially to Russell Belk for reading and commenting on my manuscript. K-Liv, Vinnova, Skånemejerier and Skånska Lantmännen funded the project of which this doctoral thesis is a part. Stiftelsen för främjande av ekonomisk forskning vid Lunds Universitet supported this particular doctoral thesis. Also, I am grateful to the Crafoord Foundation for donating the computer on which this thesis was written, Stiftelsen Landshövding Per Westlings Minnesfond for funding trips to various conferences and Handelsbankens Forskningsstiftelser for providing me with the necessary means for spending time in the US. Last, but not least, I want to thank my two families. My American one for igniting my initial interest in the peculiarities of food consumption in Sweden and the US. My Swedish one – my parents, my siblings and their spouses – thanks for your generous offerings of room and board as well as your never-ending love and support. Table of Contents Chapter One Introduction: Food and Health 1 Health in Late Modernity 5 Sketching the Contours of Late 5 Modernity The Body and Self-Identity 9 Food and Risk 12 The Research Project: Development of High- 13 Value-Added Food Products and Services Widening the Scope 17 Organization of Dissertation 19 Chapter Two Theoretical Inspiration 21 Moving Away from the Traditional Perspective 22 The Social Construction of Healthy 27 Foods Introducing Semiotics to Understand 30 Food and Health Methodological Considerations in Approaching 35 the Food and Health Area Chapter Three Reflexive Food Consumption 39 Classical Approaches to the Study of Food 39 Consumption Changing Food Habits 43 Reflexive Consumption 48 Conditions for the Self in Late Modernity 49 Food and the Body 52 Individual Responsibility for Healthiness 55 Chapter Four Food and Health 61 Four Antinomies of Taste 62 Production of the Public Health Discourse 64 Food Scares 67 A Traditional View of Healthiness 71 The Relational Aspects of Healthiness 74 Food as Health 78 Food as Unhealth 81 Chapter Five McDonaldized Food Production 83 The Four Dimensions of McDonaldization 84 The Irrationality of Rationality 88 Chapter Six Researching Food Consumption 93 Empirical Work in Sweden and the US… 94 …But Not a Cross-Cultural Study 97 Recruitment of Participants 100 Interview Procedures 102 Thematic Organization of Interviews 103 No Explicit Focus on Health 106 Representing Consumers 108 Structure of Thematization 111 Chapter Seven Categorizing Food Consumption 113 A Relational Model of Healthy Food 117 Consumption Healthy Food Consumption 119 Unhealthy Food Consumption 123 Risk Profiling 126 The Fast Food Metonymy 128 Unhealthy to the Extreme: Mountain 131 Dew Not Unhealthy Food Consumption 133 Not Healthy Food Consumption 137 Chapter Eight Food and Self-Identity 141 A Relational Model of Self-Identity 142 Defining Oneself Through Consumption 144 Like Others 145 Like Myself 148 Not Like Others 150 Not Like Myself 152 Dietary Regimens 159 Permanent Regimens 161 Temporary Regimens 164 The Stigma of Dietary Regimens 166 Idiosyncratic Regimens 168 The Asociality of Gastroanomic Food 169 Consumption Asociality in the Social Arena 172 Chapter Nine Speaking of Food 175 A Relational Model of Expert Meaning Positions 176 Safe and Risky 179 Not (Really) Risky and Not (Really) Safe 187 Reasons To Deviate From The Norm 192 Uncontrollable Urges to Consume 195 Blaming Someone Else 197 The Syntactical Trap 198 Outside the Syntax 200 Compensatory Behaviors 202 Chapter Ten The Everyday Anxiety of Contemporary Food 207 Consumption Food Consumption in Late Modernity 208 Placing One’s Faith in the Experts’ Hands 211 A Consumer Perspective on Food and Health 216 Choosing Health? 220 Concluding Remarks 222 References 227 APPENDIX A, Letter to Consumers 245 APPENDIX B, Profile of Participants 246 APPENDIX C, Ethics Protocol 248 Chapter One Introduction: Food and Health “Are You a Weekend Fatso?” (Aftonbladet, 2002-01-08) – this is merely one example of the type of suggestive messages we, as consumers, are fed with through the media on a day-to-day basis. Rarely does one single day pass by without consumers being faced with an endless stream of headlines suggesting do’s and don’ts that need to be acknowledged if consumers want to follow the path to a healthy life. There is a broad array of such messages of different types ranging from the usual ones telling us that the foods that we might have considered harmless are indeed bad for us: “Barbecued hot dogs increase cancer risk” (Aftonbladet, 2001-06-28) “Coffee-lover? Watch out for incontinence” (Aftonbladet, 2001-12- 11b) “20 hidden weight traps“ (Aftonbladet, 2002-04-22) “Plastic wrappings around foodstuffs could cause cancer” (Aftonbladet, 2001- 08-13) Another kind of messages are the ones saying that the types of foods we have learnt to believe are good might not be as effective as we thought: “Health foods not always healthy” (Aftonbladet, 2001-07-29) “The diet lunch is a fat trap” (Sydsvenska Dagbladet, 2000-10-27) “Green foods do not prevent cancer” (Dagens Nyheter, 2001-03-04) Even more cunning are the features overthrowing the old ‘truths’ of what we thought was healthy by telling that the foods we have learnt to consider healthy might instead be downright dangerous: “Olive-oil could give you cancer” (Aftonbladet, 2001-08-27, 2001- 12-05) “Too much water could lead to death” (Aftonbladet, 2002- 07-17) “Vitamins give you weak bones” (Dagens Nyheter, 2002-01- 1 01) “Diet soda could make you stupid” (Aftonbladet, 2001-12-17) “Diet products could make you fatter” (Aftonbladet, 2000-09-21) The picture is not all that alarming though as there are frequent examples of articles featuring news of various foodstuffs having a positive effect on the state of our health: “Eat broccoli – avoid cancer and gastric ulcer” (Aftonbladet, 2002- 05-28a) “Eat fish and you will become healthy” (Aftonbladet, 2002- 05-28b) “Go on a fruit diet – and become healthier!” (Expressen, 2002-07-22a) “Pasta and tomato sauce good for the prostate“ (Aftonbladet, 2002-01-15) “Eat frequently – lower your cholesterol” (Aftonbladet, 2002-01-01) “Alzheimer’s could be prevented with curry” (Aftonbladet, 2001-12-11a) “At risk: more bananas, fewer strokes?” (The New York Times, 2002-08-20) Sometimes the old ‘truths’ of what is bad for us is even radically altered.