Eating on the run. A qualitative study of health agency and eating behaviors among fast food employees

Mulvaney-Day, Norah; Womack, Catherine A.; Oddo, Vanessa M.

doi:10.1016/j.appet.2012.05.019

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…), provide individuals with exposure to different capital that forms habitus and dictates taste for consumables. Our work also aligns with Mulvaney-Day et al’s (2012) finding that internal and external factors impact workers’ food choices and consumption.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…The majority of research on fast food employment focuses on work conditions and labour relations (Gould, 2010(Gould, , 2013Leidner, 1993;Reiter, 1991Reiter, , 2002Ritzer, 2008;Royle, 2010;Woodhall and Muszynski, 2011). Moreover, there is a large body of research that explores food consumption and customers of fast food establishments (Fleischhacker et al, 2011;French, 2003;Glanz et al, 1998;Paeratakul et al, 2003), but the authors are aware of only one study (Mulvaney-Day et al, 2012) that explored work-based food choices among people (in this case white students) who were employed in the fast food industry. These authors found that a variety of external (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…cost and time) and internal factors (e.g. practices of controlling personal intake) contributed to the students’ inability to make healthy choices (Mulvaney-Day et al, 2012). They briefly noted that family influences knowledge of food ingredients and preparation; however, they did not describe the complex relationship between family food practices and future food choices of children.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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More than convenience: the role of habitus in understanding the food choices of fast food workers

Woodhall-Melnik

Matheson

2016

Work, Employment and Society

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This article explores the consumption practices of fast food workers through the lens of Bourdieu, specifically his notion of habitus. The authors address a gap in knowledge in the field of fast food work and explore the ways that the family environment and social relationships outside the family shape adult food choices using qualitative interviews with 40 fast food workers. Most fast food workers eat fast food when they are at work but their consumption patterns and choices reflect familial, cultural and class-based eating patterns and learning in adult social relationships (e.g., eating practices with friends). Some engage in a deliberate (conscious) process in their eating habits. The findings suggest that structure, disposition and conscious thought may influence food consumption.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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More than convenience: the role of habitus in understanding the food choices of fast food workers

Woodhall-Melnik

Matheson

2016

Work, Employment and Society

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“…This has been illustrated in the recent study by Mulvaney-Day et al [ 19 ], in which the issues of health agency and food choice among fast food restaurant employees, were examined. What makes this study relevant is that the sample was comprised of persons with a similar demographic profile and within a similar setting—students who had worked for a minimum of 6 months in fast food— but who differed with respect to their food choices.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These factors reference personal knowledge bases and community interpretations of health values, access health-centered and health-situated social networks, engage relational social and health [ 19 ] identities (ethnic, class, community, neighborhood or locale, gender, disability and age-based identities, among others), and occur in specific built, natural and policy environments. Mulvaney-Day and colleagues [ 19 ] suggest that public health professionals concerned with healthy eating, for example, must take into account the relative and circumstantial weighting of these various factors, and the extent to which they support or undermine healthy eating behavior, when devising policies and interventions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Choice Set” for health behavior in choice-constrained settings to frame research and inform policy: examples of food consumption, obesity and food security

Dover

Lambert

2016

Int J Equity Health

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ObjectivesUsing the nexus between food consumption, food security and obesity, this paper addresses the complexity of health behavior decision-making moments that reflect relational social dynamics in context-specific dialogues, often in choice-constrained conditions.MethodsA pragmatic review of literature regarding social determinants of health in relation to food consumption, food security and obesity was used to advance this theoretical model.Results and discussionWe suggest that health choice, such as food consumption, is based on more than the capacity and volition of individuals to make “healthy” choices, but is dialogic and adaptive. In terms of food consumption, there will always be choice-constrained conditions, along a continuum representing factors over which the individual has little or no control, to those for which they have greater agency. These range from food store geographies and inventories and food availability, logistical considerations such as transportation, food distribution, the structure of equity in food systems, state and non-government food and nutrition programs, to factors where the individual exercises a greater degree of autonomy, such as sociocultural foodways, family and neighborhood shopping strategies, and personal and family food preferences. At any given food decision-making moment, many factors of the continuum are present consciously or unconsciously when the individual makes a decision. These health behavior decision-making moments are mutable, whether from an individual perspective, or within a broader social or policy context. We review the construct of “choice set”, the confluence of factors that are temporally weighted by the differentiated and relationally-contextualized importance of certain factors over others in that moment. The choice transition represents an essential shift of the choice set based on the conscious and unconscious weighting of accumulated evidence, such that people can project certain outcomes. Policies and interventions should avoid dichotomies of “good and bad” food choices or health behaviors, but focus on those issues that contribute to the weightedness of factors influencing food choice behavior at a given decision-making moment and within a given choice set.

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“Doing Difference” and Fast Food Consumption: Patterns Among a Sample of White and African American Emerging Adults

Wade

2017

J. Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities

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Previous research has demonstrated that frequent consumption of fast food is linked to obesity and that trends in both are disparate across race and sex categories. Contextualizing race- and sex-related factors that structure fast food consumption in emerging adulthood is a much-needed contribution to social research. Specifically, this study uses the "doing difference" framework, to examine the frequency of fast food consumption in a sample of White and African American (18-25 years old). According to the framework, social inequalities are reproduced through dramaturgical performances of race, class, and gender. Results of this suggest that feminine gender orientation and education serve as protective factors, while African American race and male sex serve as risk factors. African American women emerged as especially high risk given their higher prevalence of traditionally masculine traits.

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Eating on the run. A qualitative study of health agency and eating behaviors among fast food employees

Cited by 7 publications

References 41 publications

More than convenience: the role of habitus in understanding the food choices of fast food workers

More than convenience: the role of habitus in understanding the food choices of fast food workers

“Choice Set” for health behavior in choice-constrained settings to frame research and inform policy: examples of food consumption, obesity and food security

“Doing Difference” and Fast Food Consumption: Patterns Among a Sample of White and African American Emerging Adults

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