Introduction
Food is part of all aspects of human societies. It is also an inherent social urge. Usually, food is shared as people eat together. Similarly, eating time is an event when the family or social groups such as a village comes together to share the meals (Fox, p. 1). Food is also a reason to share, distribute, give, donate to other people, be it family, friends, a stranger, etc. Food is the most vital thing a mother gives to her child as it is the substance of her individual body. In most parts of the world, a mother’s milk is the only safe food for infants. As such, food becomes not just a symbol of, but the true entity of, love and security. As humans cook their foods, cooking has also become a symbol for humanity (p. 2). Since eating is a group event, food becomes central to the symbolic activity about sociality and the humanity’s place in a given society (p. 2).
Preparing food is very cultural and different cultures have various ways of cooking and eating their foods. For instance, the British people do not eat horse and dog. The Muslims do not eat pork. Jews have various unforbidden foods and Americans hate offal. The Hindus taboo beef, and the list goes on.
In this regard, archaeologists and cultural anthropologists have studied food for so many years. However, these studies were not systematized (Mintz & Du Bois, p. 101). Initially focused on food economics and nutrition, anthropologists are now also focused on the production, distribution, and consumption of foods. The said information reveals much of the ideologies and social structures embedded within food (p. 101). Food studies is already a special field of research for scholars, journalists, activists, and those who are interested with culture, history, and politics of food (p. 101).
A considerable resource has developed in the last twenty years. These were from the social scientists, who studied food from varied angles, including globalization, agriculture/agribusiness, foodways and identity, agricultural policy, the industrialization of food, health and nutrition, physiology, commodity systems, and other food systems (Dietler, p. 218). The study of food and eating has been a special topic in anthropology, starting from the nineteenth century with Garrick Mallery and William Robertson Smith (p. 218). As eating is an everyday activity, food becomes a special aspect of anthropology. Food studies have been based on social theories, especially on historical and cultural materialism (p. 219). Various topics about food such as food ethnographies, food insecurity, among others, lead to different theories pertaining to foods.
Food and its accessibility as a vital element in the development of societies
Food or eating patterns reveal the power of culture or accumulated tradition shaping food behaviors. The foods of different peoples, formed by their varied environments and their histories, mark the sameness and differences of cultures and histories of various societies of the world. Initially, culture and personal history impacts food consumption through preferences (Neff, et. al., p. 284). Beyond the explicit direct links to specific food preferences, these exposures also impact openness to try new foods, food preparation knowledge, and comfort levels relating to the new or different cooking methods and ingredients (p. 284). Also, as cultures relate with poverty, higher-fat foods and meats are usually valued since they are tasty and filling, and extra weight may be seen by some as providing security (p. 285). Some studies relate meats (which are linked with obesity), especially red meat (which is usually linked with negative health outcomes such as cardiovascular disease, some cancers, and diabetes) to be the leading food preferences of various low-income women, both for cultural and personal factors (p. 285). Low budgets may lead meat purchases toward higher-fat, more processed, and more cost effective cuts.
Secondly, food is usually taken as a way of connecting to or holding onto cultural identity and identifying oneself from the crowd (p. 285). Foods marked as “healthy foods” are sometimes considered as foreign to a certain culture or can be perceived as culturally improper (p. 286). Some qualitative studies depict food, including “comfort foods”( such as those which are high in fat, sugar and/or filling) as a means of nurturing and providing something positive and culturally important to children and others in the face of poverty and pressures (p. 286).
Thirdly, acculturation within the general and/or perceived norms of a given society has been reported to predict various unhealthy behaviors across different immigrant and ethnic groups. In terms of diet, intake among those with greater acculturation tends to become more processed, with increased fats and sugars (p. 286). Lastly, while culture can support unhealthy diets, it can also be said that cultures are not static. As of present, trends go to show that people are turning to healthy, slow cooked, organic foods which are also healthy.
Postmodernism is reflected in food consumption. In a postmodern society, food has obtained a new identity and it shows a unitary symbol and a social relations and cultural identities enhancer (Dietler, p. 220). As of now, there are no absolute certainties and the old institutions of the social life have also been deconstructed. There are new lifestyles and social organizations in the post modern world. In trying to establish a new identity, the postmodern consumer has sometime the tendency to utilize the market as an avenue wherein the consumers raise political, ethical and environmental issues (p. 220).
For instance, there is a political consumerism that boycotts against some multinational companies’ food products. This can be taken as a critical consumption practice, aside from the trends now of patronizing fair trading products, organic food and slow food (p. 220). In general, consumers’ action has the tendency to promote a critical dialogue with the global consumerism. But within the expense framework, the political consumerism can evolve into various categories where both the positional factor, which is the buying of specific foods so as to stand out from others, put a type of a social reputation. There is also the social factor of the most radical consumerism, where consumers cooperate for the common good.
Food problems and disparities today
In general, the world has around 450 million farmers (p. 220). The agrifood sector is very diverse and this can be classified under farm size, crops grown and level of advancements. Farm sizes can differ from an average of less than 1 hectare in China to hundreds of thousands of hectares in Russia or Argentina. There are around 400 million smallholders, with a land area of less than 2 hectares. Normally, each of these farms provides for a family of 4 to 5, leading to a farm population of around 2 billion (p. 221). Hence, farming is the largest employment sector globally. Development of these small farms in developing economies is basic to the general progress of economic development in a process called “agricultural transformation” (p. 221).
Food production and food security are characterized by the increasing number of people and their economic development on the demand aspect (Dietler, p. 220). Nowadays, the demand for both the quality and quantity of food depends on the consumers and the food chains that greatly consider ecological and social aspects of how food is produced. On the supply side, there is a problem on the decreasing levels of yield gain, whether due to the laws of diminishing returns or the effects of water shortages and climate change (p. 220).
These food problems might be due to various reasons. One of the modern explanations is the new consumption habits as against the concept of a rational consumer, which is intended at maximizing utility based on budget constraint (Feagan, p. 24). Currently, people have the tendency to behave differently along their different purchase options. A vital factor hinges on both the ethical sides and selfless motivations (p. 24). These new trends are taken under the context of a new social paradigm that estimates the rise of a postmodern society (p. 24). Post modernists consider the global consumers to have the tendency to use the market as a venue wherein political, ethical and environmental concerns may arise. It actually began with a new trend of an alternative consumption called “political consumerism” (p. 25).
Another explanation is on localization. Local food systems’ changes, norms, and writings pose increasingly visible structures of resistance and counter-pressure to the traditional globalizing food systems (p. 23). The place of food seems to be the discreet focus of the arguments from within these movements. The issues of “place,” which are differently described as the “local” and “community” in the local food systems resources along with the geographic discussion explored these new concepts. There are constructed nature of the terms “local,” “community” and “place” and how it applies to food and the contexts of local social, cultural and ecological particularity in today’s world (p. 23).
On the more conventional exposition, the scarcity and food problems and global food consumption’s disparities (such as why there are so many foods in the United States compared to the Third World) may be explained by Marxist and socialist theories. As it is, people of low socio-economic status are most prone to food insecurity. These theories integrate various factors that reinforce one another, from the social to the political and the economic, among others (Hinrichs, p. 34).
Historically, the farming sector is affected by specific inexorable demographic elements. Mostly all the developing countries have a declining rural population since people are migrating to the urban areas (p. 34). With higher food prices come more cases of malnutrition (especially in young children) and poverty. Other obvious cause and effects include the depth of the effects of urbanization, the increase in inequality; the widespread use of credit to buy food, and the fact that most poverty effect stemmed from the increasing depth of poverty in the already‐poor countries (p. 35).
As overly expected, poor net food importing countries (such as the island country of Haiti, rice‐ importing countries of West Africa, and countries involved in conflicts) were among the first to experience the impacts of increasing global food prices. However, exorbitant food prices were also stated as having a grave effect on poor consumers in net food exporting countries like Thailand, Uganda and northern Mozambique (p. 38). The highest food price increases were from countries where there were remarkable domestic or regional supply and demand pressures. These included conflict, drought or in some cases, instant regional economic growth enhancing the growth in consumer demand (p. 35).
Usually, the worst‐affected groups of food scarcity and rising food prices are the casual wage laborers (both rural and urban), land‐poor farmers, insignificant traders, and producers of commodities whose terms of trade slumped against food grains. Examples of these are the Kenyan pastoralists, the Benin cotton farmers, and the Bangladeshi tea workers. Meanwhile, the salaried workers in the formal sector of societies usually fare better than others.
Interestingly, most of the high‐profile protests about food prices stemmed from urban areas, while many of the poorest and worst‐affected individuals are from the rural areas (p. 35). Present social protection and financial systems usually do affect this category. The land ownership structure and production patterns in most poor countries imply that only a minority of farmers and agribusinesses are able to take advantage of the instantly‐rising prices. In terms of an economic equation, a certain model rounded an increase in a country’s Gini (inequality) index of 1% for a 20% nominal increase in food price, while actual price rises were usually four times this level (p. 38). Inside a national economy, regional inequality is also likely to have increased, with marginal and dry agricultural areas being worst. Then, this turns to a process of farm consolidation and also lessened the availability of labor in the rural areas, which enhances greater labor productivity. The new century turned farming into an attractive growth industry, as pushed by new technology and concerns over food security.
A social ramification of food scarcity and the unstable food prices is the problem of malnutrition and other health disparities. A food systems approach starts with the acknowledgment that the baseline of health disparities goes beyond one’s choice, nutrition, or price. They also include serious community factors such as access to general social, economic, and political factors that affect food supply, nutrient quality, and affordability (Neff, et. al., p. 2). Also, some of the health disparities are motivated by the environmental and social effects of food production and processing. The roots and directions are not linear but it instead reflects complex processes and feedback loops such as that of consumer demand (p. 2).
Health disparities pertain to the gaps in health status (e.g., life expectancy, infant and maternal mortality rates, obesity and diet-related disease, and other indicators) among groups of people according to the differences in factors like socioeconomic status (SES), race/ethnicity, citizenship, environmental exposures, gender, education, disability, psychical location, or sexual orientation (p. 2). Meanwhile, food systems are systems consisting of the general methods involved in deriving food from farm to table to disposal (p. 2). It includes food production, processing, distributing, preparation, marketing, accessing, consuming, and disposing. Food systems also involve individuals and groups, farms, businesses, communities, interventions, policies, and politics (p. 3).
Strong indicators show that racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities to diet quality or diet healthfulness and to obesity and diet-related disease (Neff, et. al., p. 283). To cite, in the United States, African Americans die from stroke (age-linked) at 146% of the Whites. In terms of heart disease, they die at 131% more than the Whites and of diabetes, the African Americans die at 208% (p. 284).
Above eating foods that are high in basic nutrients, there are differences in ability to altogether access calories. A calculated 11.1% of the Americans have “low food security” and 4.1% have “very low food security” with African Americans and Latinos estimated to have doubled the national rates (p. 285). In the United States, food insecurity has been found to be highly linked with obesity. The common model shows how general food system conditions (which include food supply such as what is produced and how it is produced and food affordability which includes both price and the food safety net, and marketing) combine with the food systems and food environments functioning in communities (such as stores, restaurants, schools, workplaces, etc.) (p. 285).
All these have, in turn, reciprocal dynamics with other elements in the social environment (including cultural and time contexts), to affect individual propensity to eat a healthy and sustainable diet (p. 285). In this analysis, the disparities in the social environment (including demographic factors like race/ethnicity, geography, gender, and power) refract the whole set of relationships, so that the various sectors of society may differ widely in the kinds and quantities of food they are most likely to consider as accessible, affordable, and culturally acceptable. These processes are both iterative and interactive.
The personal food preferences and the psychosocial factors that affect them usually differ within and between communities (p. 286). However, demographics are not destinies. The factors mentioned above may lead to aggregate-level disparities in healthfulness of preferences and options. Various interventions to alter the food system/health relationship fall into two general classes: those using population-based strategies, geared at changing factors impacting the whole population; and targeted strategies intended at changing the food system exposures or food demand within certain parts of the population.
Specifically, efforts using new information or technologies may have this paradoxical effect (p. 287). As Paul Farmer studied, the group which begins healthier is usually better educated with more resources and is thus, more likely to utilize new technology or information more quickly and effectively. Hence, this leads to experiencing more gain in health status than those with poorer health, less education, and lesser resources.
Works Cited:
Dietler, Michael. Culinary Encounters: Food, Identity, and Colonialism. In The Archaeology of Food and Identity, ed. By K. C. Twiss. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper No. 34, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, p. 218-242.
Feagan, Robert. The place of food: mapping out the ‘local’ in local food systems. Progress in Human Geography, 31 (1), p. 23 – 42. 2007.
Fox, Robin. Food and Eating: An Anthropological Perspective. Social Issue Research Centre. Accessed on 28 April 2015 <www.sirc.org/publik/foxfood.pdf>.
Hinrichs, C. “The practice and politics of food system localization”. Journal of Rural Studies 19, p. 33–40. 2003.
Mintz, Sidney W. & Du Bois, Christine M. “The Anthropology of Food and Eating.” Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 31, p. 99-119. 2002.
Neff, R., et. al. Food systems and public health disparities. Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition, 4, p. 282 - 314. 2009.
