TY - JOUR

T1 - Linking socioeconomic disadvantage to healthiness of food practices

T2 - Can a practice-theoretical perspective sharpen everyday life analysis?

AU - Halkier, Bente

AU - Holm, Lotte

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - Food is one of the key themes in public health policy and debates over inequalities in health. In this article, we argue that more research is needed to understand how socioeconomic disadvantage is translated into low degrees of healthiness. We suggest that everyday life analysis may be sharpened by way of drawing upon a practice-theoretical perspective on the mundane processes involved in this translation. We base our suggestion on a small review of three strands in the literature on social inequality, food and health, namely public health research, lifestyle analysis and everyday life studies, and we take our analytical starting point in the latter. In the article, we argue that a practice-theoretical perspective may enable research in social disadvantage and healthiness of food that describes and interprets variants in the conditioned agency, which cuts cross the multiplicity of different practices that make-up people's daily lives. Finally, we suggest that a stronger focus on social interaction and social hierarchy would adapt a practice-theoretical perspective further to empirical analysis in the field of food, health and socioeconomic disadvantage.

AB - Food is one of the key themes in public health policy and debates over inequalities in health. In this article, we argue that more research is needed to understand how socioeconomic disadvantage is translated into low degrees of healthiness. We suggest that everyday life analysis may be sharpened by way of drawing upon a practice-theoretical perspective on the mundane processes involved in this translation. We base our suggestion on a small review of three strands in the literature on social inequality, food and health, namely public health research, lifestyle analysis and everyday life studies, and we take our analytical starting point in the latter. In the article, we argue that a practice-theoretical perspective may enable research in social disadvantage and healthiness of food that describes and interprets variants in the conditioned agency, which cuts cross the multiplicity of different practices that make-up people's daily lives. Finally, we suggest that a stronger focus on social interaction and social hierarchy would adapt a practice-theoretical perspective further to empirical analysis in the field of food, health and socioeconomic disadvantage.

KW - everyday life

KW - food

KW - Health

KW - practice theories

KW - social inequality

U2 - 10.1111/1467-9566.13251

DO - 10.1111/1467-9566.13251

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 33635571

AN - SCOPUS:85101727782

VL - 43

SP - 750

EP - 763

JO - Sociology of Health and Illness

JF - Sociology of Health and Illness

SN - 0141-9889

IS - 2

ER -