Psychosocial Aspects of Food Habits

Elizabeth R. Mills

Knowing their values surrounding food, students help themselves and others understand and modify their food habits.

Summary As part of a college class studying the psychosocial aspects of

food habits, students learned to understand their own food habits, those of their family, and the attitudes and values surrounding these habits. Lewin's projective questionnaire, "Group Test for Deter­mining Anchorage Points of Food Habits," interviews and short essays focused each student's attention on personal habits regarding food selection and eating patterns. These patterns were seen in the larger contexts of the family and the lifestyle of the individual. Such insights provided the students with a better understanding of how to modify behavior successfully to improve their diets and those of others.

Families, Food Patterns, and Values Jane liked breakfast and lunch but hated dinner. She told the

class, "Dinner was a major family-oriented structure in my fam­ily where all family matters of importance (to my father) were discussed. He did all the complaining, criticizing and questioning at the dinner table. Complaints were usually the center of atten­tion-grades in school, who was going where, whose rbom was a mess, etc. He carried the conversation, and all four of us children were somewhat afraid to open our mouths thinking we would get screamed at for disrupting him or we would be criticized for whatever we said. Dinner, in summary, was my dad's time.

"My mother prepared his food preferences and presented his children to him in the most desirable way possible. We could never come to the table at any meal without being fully dressed and looking nice. We were all expected to be very mannerly-no elbows on the table and napkins on laps. When my mother thought we were doing something wrong, she would lift her eyebrows or wait until my dad looked the other way and put her finger up in disapproval."

Jane paused, looked amazed and then exclaimed, "It's no wonder 1 like breakfast foods and lunch foods such as sand­wiches better than roasts or chicken which were dinner foods at home. 1 can see here at school that dinner is my main meal-but one 1 like least. 1 feel uncomfortable without a napkin and 1 don't rest my elbows on the table.

"We were never allowed to start eating before dad came to the dinner table-which was always five to ten minutes after we had all sat down. This meant the food cooled until it was lukewarm. 1 do not like any foods that are really hot or really cold. 1 heat my soups until they are just warm. At home my family eats very fast. It may be we attempted to hurry my dad so he'd have less time to discuss family problems because we couldn't leave the table until he was finished. 1 still eat fast and am always ready to get away from the table first. It's amazing how much of me has to do with dinner time when living with my family!"

Jane was a member of a three-credit college class, Psychosocial Aspects of Food and Nutrition, for students in home economics teaching, food service and dietetics. Evaluation of the experien­tial portions of the class is based on the students' abilities to

THE A UTHOR is Assistant Professor, Department of Home Economics, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859.

recognize how their family influences their food patterns and their food patterns reflect their own values.

It is essential for future nutrition educators to be aware oftheir own values surrounding food and to develop some understand­ing of the importance of these values in their lives. They will then be less likely to inflict their own prejudices and beliefs onto those they are teaching (1). They also need to determine the back­ground and family practices of the person with whom they are working so that nutrition education and dietary modification may be congruent with the person's lifestyle and values.

It is a challenge to teach this awareness of one's food habits and those of others. This article describes three approaches which have been used over the past seven years including short essays to reflect attitudes, in-depth interviews and independent student interviews. A modification of Lewin's projective questionnaire, "Group Test for Determining Anchorage Points of Food Habits" (2), makes it possible to determine quickly the most important characteristics of food which direct the food choices of the indi­vidual. When this is followed by an informal interview of a student in class, a picture of family interaction unfolds which gives meaning to the development of individual food patterns within the family and the emotions associated with them. Even though these food experiences are emotionally charged, students feel comfortable in discussing them before the class. Jane's story of the fam{ly dinner is an example of this discussion.

Lewin's Test on Food Habits and Its Application The "Group Test for Determining Anchorage Points of Food

Habits" (2) was originally designed to be used for :children. It is rather unstructured and consists of four basic questions. The first one asks the individual to write down the different foods which his/her family might eat almost every day and the reasons for doing so. The answer tends to reflect not only the attitudes towards certain foods but also neutral, non-conflict foods.

The second and third questions ask what foods someone in his/her family might be praised or scolded for eating and the person(s) who would administer this and why. These questions indicate the areas of conflict which might exist and the foods over which such conflict might arise. They also provide the authority for food practices and the reasons which are used.

The fourth question is presented in the form of a story of the experiences of two boys, Bob and Jim, who each stayed at a friend's house over the weekend. When they were talking about it on the way to school on Monday, Bob said, "I had a great time because the food was just swell; each meal was wonderful!" Jim said, "Oh, 1 had awful meals; the food was terrible. It was no fun at all!" Then each individual is asked to name the foods served at specific meals and snack time at the house Bob visited and those at the house Jim visited. Lewin designed this question merely to yield a list of foods high in preference for taste or prestige and a second list low in preference. The answers indicate which foods are typically used for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

When adapting the Lewin test for use with college students, the interpretation of the answers to the fourth question were

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April-June 1977 Vol. 9 No.2 Journal of Nutrition Education 67

expanded considerably to solicit significant information on the different kinds of food behavior, attitudes and values. These include: how people feel about specific foods and meals; how important are color, texture and temperature of food or food combinations; how adventurous or conservative the food choices are; what the ethnic and regional background is; which foods are used for reward and punishment; how people feel toward skipped meals and snacking; the way time is used in the family, whether for meal preparation or for other activities; and how money is used for food or other goods.

This information is elicited by having students compare the "good" meals of Bob with the "poor" meals of Jim on the following food characteristics: temperature, texture, flavor, moistness or dryness, color, variety or number of different foods, rich foods, prestige foods, number of meals, the person who prepares them, preparation time, table setting, food mixtures, ease in eating, cost of foods, special occasion or ethnic or unfa­miliar foods, and food distribution among meals. If a food or food group is listed in both the "good" and "poor" meals, it is considered a core or neutral food over which there is no conflict.

Short Essays Reflect Attitudes Using the results of the Lewin test, each student is asked to

write a short essay on "The Psychological Influences on My Food Habits" and to explore the application of these attitudes and values to other areas of their lives. Excerpts from three student essays follow:

"Variety of food plus color are especially important to my food choices. These are also important in my clothing choices. For me, it is tiresome to have the same type of food or the same type of clothes. I prefer crisp, chewable food rather than soft and runny foods. This preference is reflected in my crisp and fresh clothing."

"I like mixed food dishes, and many things are going on in my life at the same time~no time wasted~all mixed together. My husband does not care for his food mixed together and this is much the way he likes his life~one thing at a time. He will not willingly start a new project until the other one is finished~even if time is wasted between the end of one and the start of the next!"

"Food habits tell a great deal about a person in a subtle way and I realize my food habits tell a lot about me. I am an orderly person. Everything in my house has a place, and I cannot stand to have it out of place except when it is being used. In my kitchen my cupboards are neat, and when I cook, I am orderly. My need for order even shows up when I set the table. I carefully arrange food on the places. Also, I am a slow eater and the last one to fi­nish a meal. But then I like to do everything slowly. When I rush I lose control of things and everything goes wrong. Since food habits are such a personal thing, I can understand why it is so difficult to change them. Most of the time a person's whole way oflife may be affected!"

These examples seem to verify Burgess and Dean's sugges­tion that "the importance of food habits lies in the concept of the 'self-image.' A person says, in effect, 'The food habits I have are my food habits. I have formed or accepted them, and now they are part of myself .... They are a form of individual self-ex­pression, just as much as clothing or reading habits' " (3).

In-depth Interviews The second step in understanding the psychosocial component

of food habits is through in-depth demonstration interviews in class by the class instructor of student volunteers on their family food practices during their childhood. The purposes are: I) to portray the substantial differences among families and their

68 J oumal of Nutrition Education Vol. 9 No.2 April-June 1977

mealtimes and 2) to demonstrate the intimate relationship which exists between a person's own food behavior and that of his family. Information disclosed during the interviews includes: the climate at mealtime, parent-child interactions, sibling rivalry, the person who administers discipline and why, the manner of resolving conflict, topics discussed at mealtime and by whom, the roles of the various family members, the family traditions con­cerning food, and the values which the family holds.

From the following list appropriate questions on a family's food practices are used to stimulate the responses, and the answers are probed by followup questions:

I Does the family eat together? If not, how do they eat? 2 How is food served? If one member doesn't like it, what

happens? 3 How would you describe the atmosphere at mealtimes?

Who does most of the talking? About what? What do other family members do?

4 What are the rules at mealtime or for snacking? Who makes them? How are they enforced and what happens if they are broken?

5 Who purchases food? Prepares it? Whose preferences are considered?

6 What importance does mealtime have in your family life? Explain.

7 Is food used for reward or punishment? Explain. The openended discussion of family mealtimes has been used

by family therapists in treating the whole family as a unit with the focus of treatment on the interpersonal interactions among fam­ily members. Two reports of research from family therapy substantiate the importance of the family mealtime as the milieu for teaching the children.

Dreyer and Dreyer in a study of 40 families found that the evening meal is the most stable family ritual in which the child participates. At the meal, the child learns such things as "age and sex roles, family membership roles, values centering about reli­gious observances, bodily functions, sensuous enjoyment, and the expression of feeling" (4). Douglas found in his studies of family interactions that the dinnertime tends to reflect the general patterns of family behavior (5). For example, ifthere is conflict at dinner, it is often related to struggles within the family at other times. Thus, mealtime is a microcosm of the family interaction.

The third step after the students understand their own food behavior and the family influences in helping to form it, is to interview people outside the class, either strangers or acquain­tances, to get to know them through their food habits. Students reported their results in short papers.

These three instructional methods, which may also be used in high school classes, served to sharpen the understanding of col­lege students concerning their own food habits, those of their family, and the attitudes and values surrounding them. These experiences have helped students in field work in community nutrition to increase their effectiveness in teaching nutrition and dietary modification. 0

References I Burgess, A. and R. F. A. Dean, Eds. Malnutrition and Food Habits.

The Macmillan Company. New York, 1962, p. 160. 2 National Research Council. Committee on Food Habits. A Group

Test for Determining the Anchorage Points of Food Habits. a prelim­inary report on a study directed by Kurt Lewin. Child Welfare Research Station. State University of Iowa. June 1942.21 pp. (mim­eographed)

3 Burgess. A. and R. F. A. Dean. Eds., Malnutrition and Food Habits. The Macmillan Company. New York, 1962. p. 79.

4 Dreyer, C. A .. and A. S. Dreyer. Family dinner time as a unique behavior habitat, Family Process. 12:291. 1973.

5 Douglas. R. R., Dinnertime dynamics, Family Coordinator. 17: 181. 1968.