Class and eating: Family meals in Britain

This paper examines social differentiation in eating patterns in Britain. It focuses on family meals among individuals with under-age children. Eating with family members has been associated with improvement in wellbeing, nutritional status, and school performance of the children. Modern lifestyles...

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Bibliografische gegevens
Hoofdauteur: Jarosz, E
Formaat: Journal article
Gepubliceerd in: Elsevier 2017
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author Jarosz, E
author_facet Jarosz, E
author_sort Jarosz, E
collection OXFORD
description This paper examines social differentiation in eating patterns in Britain. It focuses on family meals among individuals with under-age children. Eating with family members has been associated with improvement in wellbeing, nutritional status, and school performance of the children. Modern lifestyles may pose a challenge to commensal eating for all groups, but the scale of the impact varies between social classes, with some groups at higher risk of shortening or skipping family meal time. Eating patterns are differentiated by individual's social class; they have also been associated with educational attainment, work schedules, and household composition. The objective of this study is to disaggregate the effect of these variables. Using data from the 2014/2015 UK Time Use Survey I analyse the net effect of social class, education, income, work and family characteristics on the frequency and duration of family meals. Individuals in the highest occupational class dedicate more time overall to family meals. However, class effect becomes insignificant when other variables, such as education or income, are controlled for. This study finds that higher educated individuals have more frequent family meals, and more affluent individuals spend more time at the table with their household members. Work characteristics are associated with frequency of meals, but not with their duration. Finally, household composition matters for how people eat. Parents of younger children eat with their family members more frequently than parents of teenagers. Single parents, a notoriously time-poor category, spend the least amount of time eating with their families and have fewer commensal meals.
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spelling oxford-uuid:7ac252d6-d13e-4d0d-8fb4-c6aac3b86a472022-03-26T20:46:05ZClass and eating: Family meals in BritainJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:7ac252d6-d13e-4d0d-8fb4-c6aac3b86a47Symplectic Elements at OxfordElsevier2017Jarosz, EThis paper examines social differentiation in eating patterns in Britain. It focuses on family meals among individuals with under-age children. Eating with family members has been associated with improvement in wellbeing, nutritional status, and school performance of the children. Modern lifestyles may pose a challenge to commensal eating for all groups, but the scale of the impact varies between social classes, with some groups at higher risk of shortening or skipping family meal time. Eating patterns are differentiated by individual's social class; they have also been associated with educational attainment, work schedules, and household composition. The objective of this study is to disaggregate the effect of these variables. Using data from the 2014/2015 UK Time Use Survey I analyse the net effect of social class, education, income, work and family characteristics on the frequency and duration of family meals. Individuals in the highest occupational class dedicate more time overall to family meals. However, class effect becomes insignificant when other variables, such as education or income, are controlled for. This study finds that higher educated individuals have more frequent family meals, and more affluent individuals spend more time at the table with their household members. Work characteristics are associated with frequency of meals, but not with their duration. Finally, household composition matters for how people eat. Parents of younger children eat with their family members more frequently than parents of teenagers. Single parents, a notoriously time-poor category, spend the least amount of time eating with their families and have fewer commensal meals.
spellingShingle Jarosz, E
Class and eating: Family meals in Britain
title Class and eating: Family meals in Britain
title_full Class and eating: Family meals in Britain
title_fullStr Class and eating: Family meals in Britain
title_full_unstemmed Class and eating: Family meals in Britain
title_short Class and eating: Family meals in Britain
title_sort class and eating family meals in britain
work_keys_str_mv AT jarosze classandeatingfamilymealsinbritain