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| Determinants of Food Behaviours |
The model shows the specific factors shaping food choice. Those nearer the bottom of the order like personal and psychological are more at the function of individual circumstances, while those nearer the top such as availability, economics and acceptability reflect wider societal influences and are often beyond the control of the individual. Let us study each of these determinants separately.
Availability
The fundamental limitation on food choice is simply availability. This may be seen in terms of both cultural and physical factors. The range of foods available to a human population is governed by cultural acceptability.
Let us examine the physical aspects of availability. Climate has been one of the major determinants of food availability. You must have observed that there are essentially rice grown areas in South India and similarly wheat grown areas in North India. Seasonal variation in food availability also affects food choice. All of us as working women experience work pressure and, hence, do not find it convenient to go to the market to buy the foods, though we can afford. This also affects food availability at home. Thus availability of foods to an individual is the result of various physical factors.
Let us now see the cultural availability of foods. Culture has a value system which determines what people in that culture regard as fit for human consumption and what can be eaten by who. Food habits are not inherent, they are learnt from parents, relatives or friends. For example, many people even though they are vegetarians, don't mind sharing fooa with non-vegetarians. Vegetarians would not consume meat and meat products where as non-vegetarians eat meat and meat products. Thus culture restricts the availability of certain foods to certain segments of population.
Acceptability
Acceptability is a determinant of food choice. Individuals in a particular culture are bound to accept certain foods. Social practices, culture and religion play a role in acceptability of foods. Let us consider.
a) Social
Food has always played an important role in the social and religious life of many societies. Each society has its own concept of food. The type of food varies with the social environment. Coming together for meals reflects the common bond, mutual dependence and loyalty among the members of family and defines the role of various people, sharing the meal.
Status of the family members: Food distribution depends upon the status, and role among the members of family rather then on their nutritional needs/food needs. As you are in many parts of our country, earning male members are served first with the best diet both in quantity and quality. For instance, if only two eggs are available one egg is served to the head of the family. The vulnerable segments, namely the children and women of child-bearing age, get the left-over food with the exception of some snack items (generally bought) which are usually given to children. Thus food is a medium of social expression of importance of individuals in a Indian home. Influence of head and other adults: The he;J of the family either directly or indirectly influences the family dietary pattern. Housewife is forced to cook foods of his choice and taste. Sometimes it reaches to the extent of addition of more chilli and salt according to the taste of the head of the family. The others are. forced to get into this habit or deprive.
Young mothers generally need help from others in the family. In matters of child feeding and diet for pregnant and lactating women, elderly women like grand mothers, mothers-in-law and mothers have a say. Thus elderly women's decisions tells upon the nutrition of the vulnerable segments of the population and sometimes the consequences are dangerous.
Influence of religious culture: The ties of food to religion and religion to food in any culture extend beyorri: the serving of food alone. Most of us are aware, animal sacrifice and offering food on religious occasions, whatever the religion may be, have a symbolic value. Religious beliefs have much to do not only with what is eaten but when it is eaten and how much is eaten? Non-vegetarian hindus do not eat beef, muslims do not eat pork. Jains do not eat anything that grows below the ground like root vegetables for fear of killing the organisms present. Some communities do not mind eating the flesh of dead animals, certain castes eat rodents and some kinds of insects. Foods like milk. honey, curds, rice, ghee, fruits etc. are offered to God and then shared by all in the family as a special item (Prasad). Levish amounts of quality foods are offered on special occasions and it may affect the diet of the family on other days.
Peer Influence: This influence of the peer group is slowly penetrating our villages also. Villagers working as white collar workers in factories and industries in nearby towns are beginning to copy their urban brothers in more than one way. A good breakfast early in the morning and carrying a tiffin box to the place of work is slowly being substituted by tea and coffee followed by a light snack in the canteen, poor in calories and other essential nutrients. Rural mothers are beginning to copy their urban sisters, thanks to television and radio advertising, in substituting local milk by tinned stuff but diluted several fold so that the children get very little nutritional benefits. It is fashionable to drink arrack and wood spirits. It is also fashionable to be hungry rather than be seen eating home-made food. The younger generation in particular are affected more by this rural to urban migration, creating a vicious cycle of poor health and nutritional status accompanied by morbidity, leading to absenteeism and loss of wages, indebtedness, worsening of nutritional status and increase in morbidity.
Thus, while you plan for change in food behaviour, you must know first, what meanings the specific food involved have for the person and society, what purpose they serve, with what customs, traditions and statuses they &e associated and to what behaviours they are bound?
b) Cultural
All this while, we were discussing a human's food behaviour in terms of his social environment. Now we will be examining the nature and type of cultural beliefs, traditions and practices that influence food behaviour. particularly at the family level. The cultural beliefs cover the entire gamut of physiological periods in a human being's life such as pregnancy. lactation, in infancy and childhood, adolescence and adulthood. sickness and disease, the concept of hot and cold foods and specific food/drinks peculiar to the region which are of interest to a nutrition worker.
Foods for pregnant women: The need for extra nutrients during pregnancy is hardly realized in many communities, on the contrary, a pregnant women's diet is restricted both quantitatively and qualitatively, thus precipitating or aggravating various nutrition deficiency diseases like anaemia. Foods of animal origin like milk which are so very essential are denied because of the firm belief that the foetus may become very big and cause difficult labour. Eggs, jaggery and papaya are considered hot foods and forbidden for fear of abortion. Bananas are thought to result in a one child sterility and hence not allowed. Today consumption is encouraged because of the belief that it helps foetal movements and free micturition (urine) removing poison from the body. Obviously these are symbolic beliefs with no foundation.
Foods during infancy and childhood: Breast milk is considered unequaled by any other food and rightly so, with regard to its nutritional value to infants and is continued as long as two years or till the end of the second trimester of a subsequent pregnancy. Colostrum or the yellow liquid that obzes from the breast in the first 24-48 hours after delivery, is given to the infants in some families and rejected in other families (expressed and thrown away), because it is considered equivalent to pus and blood. The importance of colostrum is now well-known for its content of vitamin A and some other important factors which protect the infant'from diseases. There is a need, therefore, to encourage the feeding of colostrum to infants. During the first 48 hours, the infant is given honey or sugar water.
Most of the mothers feel that they have enough breast milk to feed the children till they are completely weaned on to an adult diet. There is no recognition of the special needs of a child about to be weaned and no attempt is made to cook anything, separately for the child. The mothers are against early supplementation advocated by nutrition workers i.e. at 4-6 months, because they feel that a child cannot be fed solid food as he has no teeth.
Between the 12th and 18th month, the child starts eating the adult diet If the next pregnancy intervenes, the child is abruptly weaned from the breast. This leads to serious psychological trauma, loss of appetite, illness and severe malnutrition.
Foods like eggs and meat are thought to produce jaundice and oedema and considered unsuitable for the delicate stomach of a child. Citrus fruits, butter milk and curds are also forbidden for fear of cold and &I for fear of diarrhoea. In fact, the most important of all foods, needed for growth and development are thus avoided. Foods during adolescence: At menarche, a girl is given only sweet foods, with restriction of salt in the diet. Her diet consists of jaggery, fat and copra and sesame oil mixed with raw egg to give strength to her back. Milk and milk products, and cold foods like citrus hits, gourds, green leafy vegetables and ragi are withheld since they are supposed to cause various illnesses. Eating the spleen of a goat, is supposed to supress secondary sexual characteristics like moustaches in boys and development of breaits in girls. Certain foods like the pulp of the date palm consumed during the rainy season and drinks like toddy and arrack are believed to increase the potency in adolescent boys.
The concept of hot and cold: This concept is quite familiar to all of us. This does not seem to be related either to the seasonal availability or the spicyness of the foods but to the intrinsic quality present in the food itself. Foods rich in protein and calories like eggs, chicken, ducks and duck's eggs, milk, maize, roti (wheat), red gram, bengal gram and horsegram dals, and fruits like papaya and mango and tubers like colacasia (Arvi) are included under heat producing or hot foods. All the fruits and vegetables with a high moisture content like members of the citrus and melon families, gourd family, green- leafy vegetable and ragi, pomdge with butter-milk or curds seem to be categorised as cold foods. The local staples are, however, considered neutral since without them people would starve. Many of these concepts are outdated but they are still present in the community and you as a student of community nutrition should be aware of them.
Food during illness and disease: The general beliefs is that diseases can never be caused by lack of certain foods in the diet. On the contrary, they can be caused by eating the wrong food and/or super-natural spirits. Hence the severe dietary restrictions during illness for fear of aggravating the disease eg. skin lesions, jaundice, oedema, diarrhoea.
Most of the mothers withdraw all animal protein from the diet and gave only vegetarian food consisting of sago porridge with or without milk during childhood diarrhoea and in protein, energy malnutrition. Tea with bread or roti was the standard diet for fever. There were no dietary restrictions for cold and cough, worms and angular stomatitis. Measles or chicken-pox formed a special group of diseases where the diet consisted of tamarind pulp, rice with salt, water, fresh toddy and butter milk. If the children were too ill to ask for food, the mothers never force fed the children. In other words the child was starved. The cultural concepts regarding three commonly occuring deficiency diseases namely marasmus, night blindness and anaemia are of special interest while the signs and symptoms are well known but the nutritional basis of these diseases are not known. Severe dietary restrictions are practised along with magico-medical treatment, purgetives and emetics, leading to a worsening of the disease condition sometimes ending fatally.
Food and combination of food People believe that certain food /combinations are harmful while others are beneficial. Perhaps inadequate methods of preservation and psychological factors an: responsive for these beliefs, we do not know. Some examples of harmful combination are cooking fish in milk and eggs with spinach. In actual practice, cooking fish in milk removes its fishy odour to a large extent and makes it acceptable to those who do not like that smell. Eggs and spinach make a delightful combination. Redsorrel, pumpkin (red) and brinjals are also supposed to cause joint pains and not given to lactating women, in particular. Some of the beneficial combinations are drinking milk after eating mangoes and eating jaggery along with groundnuts to remove the biliousness caused by the oil seeds. Most of these so called harmful combinations do not have any scientific basis. But the fact remains that they are found all over India Many of these practices may be prevalent in your own homes and it is left to you, as a student of community nutrition to try and modify them, with your knowledge of nutrition.
Economic
You may be aware that economics of foods is the next important factor to availability in influencing the choice of the foods in a family. As indicated in the model purchasing power of a family is dependent on the income of the family and prices of various foods in the market. It has also been observed that in most of the low income families, economics of foods play a major role and the role of other factors like socio-cultural is to the minimum extent possible.
The patterns of expenditure is an other dimension of economics of foods. You must have observed that there are different categories of people, for instance, some families spend more on acquiring gold, property articles like radios, television, VCR etc. and minimum on food. Even among some wealthy families, it is the quantity and not the quality of food that increases with wealth. Surveys revealed that expenditure on special occasions like festivals, weddings, funerals is around 50-150 per cent of the income. At the same time left overs are not served in many so-called middle income households because it is below their prestige. Some people do not use ragi, parboiled rice etc, because they are considered as poorman's diet. Thus many families are being deprived of good quality food particularly the vulnerable groups due to value systems related to patterns of expenditure on food. It must be clear to you now how economic considerations determine whether foods are available and affordable.
Psychological
Food produces an emotional response in all people, but since every individual has different experiences, the responses will vary from one person to other and thus individual food habits are formed.
Most of us are aware that food can be used to substitute for expressing our real feelings may be of depression or frustration. Food can also help relieve boredom or loneliness or escape from pressurers of life. People eat when they are very happy and also when they are depressed and sad. This gives them security. Students taking exams usually have different meal patterns. Intake of stimulants like coffee and tea increases. Fating can be used as a substitute for love. For example deprived children may use food to comfort themselves.
Familiarity with a food often makes it more acceptable. Children prefer familiar food when they are in strange surroundings. Similarly, immigrants of different cultures look for familiar food as a means of feeling secure. Now you must have realised what psychological aspects are and their relation to individual choice of food.
Personal
Here the focus is on the interaction of people with food. Individual reaction to food may include his knowledge about food. Knowledge about food may.be based on health beliefs orfand scientific reasoning. For example, some people have a belief that meat is a healthy food and there is no need to take other foods if meat is taken in a day. This is purely cultural belief but nutritionally it is not correct. An other belief is that when the girl attains puberty, they feed her with snack prepared with gingerlly seeds and jaggery. This knowledge is culturally as well as scientifically correct. Now people are acquiring many facts about nutrition through mass media. Thus personal knowledge determines the choice of food to a certain extent.
Now we will come to the aspect of preferences, but before going to that let us be clear with certain often used in the context of food preference. Use, preference and liking are often mixed with one another.
There is some relation between these terms. For instance, availability, price and convenience, are critical determinants of use but not of preference or liking, and the health value of foods, though a potent determinant of preference and use, may have little to do with liking. Some psychologists have suggested that emphasis on the nutritive value of foods implies that they do not taste good. This is brought out clearly in one conversation between two preschoolers. One asked the other why she did not like spinach. The other replied that she did like spinach till her mother told her that it was good for her. Extensive studies in the U.S.A. have shown that there are three basic type of reasons for acceptance and rejection of potential foods. They are (a) sensory-affective, (b) anticipated consequences and (c) ideational factors. Let us have a look at these factors.
A) Sensory-affective factors
Some items are rejected or accepted as food primarily because of their sensory effects in the month or the dour or appearance. These accepted items can be called good tastes and those rejected distastes. Good taste produce a positive effect(like) and distaste produces a negative affect (dislike) by definition. Sensory-affective reactions can be inborn like acceptance of sweet taste and rejection of bitter taste or acquired. It is interesting to note that substances that are included under the sensory-affective category are almost always acceptable foods in that individual's culture.
B) Anticipated Consequences
Some substances are accepted or rejected because of anticipated consequences. These consequences could be:
- Rapid effects like nausea or cramps or the pleasant feeling of satiety.
- More delayed effects involved beliefs and attitudes about the health value of the foods (eg.contain vitamins, on the positive side or potential carcinogens on the negative side).
- They may be social such as an expected change in social status as a consequences of eating a particular food.
The psychologists place all acceptances based on anticipated consequences in the beneficial category and all rejections in the dangerous category.
C) Ideational factors
Some substances are accepted or rejected as food primarily because of our knowledge of what they are or where they come from. These factors predominate more in rejections of
foods and.are less common in acceptances.
- A large number of items which are referred to as inappropriate and are considered inedible in the culture and refused eg. grass, sand and wood.
- the category of disgust, which is strongly rejective. For eg. disgusting items produce nausea and are thought to have unpleasant taste even though in most instances, they have never been tasted.
- There is also a negative affective response to their odour, appearance and to skin contact. Example of these substances are contaminants and pollutants. The possibility of their presence even in the tiniest amounts makes the food unacceptable. For the very thought that faecal maner may be present in the food item produces immediate rejection. In orthodox families, the elders do not usually eat the left-overs of lunch at dinner, due to pollution and contamination partly on the grounds of hygiene and partly on the grounds of others having been given the same food, such as servants.
Another factor which is imp-t in the study of food selection is acquisition of likes and dislikes for foods:
It is important in the study of food selection for two reasons:
People may avoid a food because they have been told that it will make them sick. But why should they come to dislike its taste?
It would be highly desirable for people, from the public health point of view, to like what is good for them and to dislike what is bad for them.
Three contrasting pairs of developing likes and dislikes toward specific foods are described here. The first member of each pair involves an affective response (take like or dislike) and the second does not. The contracts will be i) distasteful versus dangerous food, ii) good tasting versus beneficial items iii) disgusting versus inappropriate items.
Distaste versus danger: When ingestion of food is followed by nausea and vomiting human develop a strong aversion for it, even after just one negative experience. Taste aversions can occur after such experiences as respiratory distress, headache, cramps following eating which induces avoidance motivated by danger rather then distaste.
Good taste versus beneficial items: Exposure of humans to a certain food increases the liking because repeated exposure removes the fear of the food and the person learn that the food is safe. Hungry persons prefer the flavour of low calorie foods; that is, rapid satiety seems to be an effective way to produce a state dependent liking.
Disgusting versus Inappropriate items: Disgusting items are invariably animal products and inappropriate items are mostly inorganic and of minimal nutritive value. The following features of disgust seem to be universal.
- a characteristic facial expression.
- the inclusion of faeces in this category
- disgusting items serve as psychological contaminants, rendering otherwise good food undesirable by the slightest contact.
The aforesaid analysis of factors influencing the choice of food indicate the interplay of the factors like availability, economic, acceptability, personal and psychological in the choice of foods.
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