Everyday Eating in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden: A Comparative Study of Meal Patterns 1997-2012

249 Pages·2019·3.002 MB·English

by  Jukka Gronow, Lotte Holm

Everyday Eating in Denmark, Finland,
Norway and Sweden
i
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ii
Everyday Eating in Denmark,
Finland, Norway and Sweden
A Comparative Study of Meal
Patterns 1997–2012
Edited by Jukka Gronow and Lotte Holm
iii
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
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First published in Great Britain 2019
Copyright © Jukka Gronow, Lotte Holm and Contributors 2019
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copyright page.
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Patents Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as Editors of this work.
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iv
Contents
Notes on Contributors vi
Preface viii
Acknowledgements ix
1 Introduction: Eating in Modern Everyday Life Lotte Holm and
Jukka Gronow 1
2 Th e Food We Eat Lotte Holm, Drude Skov Lauridsen, Jukka Gronow,
Nina Kahma, Unni Kjærnes, Th omas Bøker Lund, Johanna Mäkelä, and
Mari Niva 15
3 Th e Daily Rhythm of Eating Th omas Bøker Lund and Jukka Gronow 33
4 Th e Social Context and Conduct of Eating Lotte Holm,
Drude Lauridsen, Th omas Bøker Lund, Jukka Gronow,
Mari Niva and Johanna Mäkelä 57
5 Family Meals on the Decline? Lotte Holm, Th omas Bøker Lund,
Drude Lauridsen, and Jukka Gronow 77
6 Th e Complexity of Meals Nina Kahma, Johanna Mäkelä,
Mari Niva, and Th omas Bøker Lund 93
7 Eating Out, Having Guests Th omas Bøker Lund 109
8 Cooking and Gender Lotte Holm, Marianne Pipping Ekström,
Sara Hach, and Th omas Bøker Lund 123
9 Food Insecurity Anita Borch and Unni Kjærnes 141
10 Eating Practices and Dietary Health Lotte Holm, Th omas Bøker
Lund, and Mari Niva 159
11 Eating Sustainably Mari Niva, Johanna Mäkelä, Nina Kahma,
and Unni Kjærnes 173
12 Conclusions: Continuity and Change in Everyday Eating Lotte Holm
and Jukka Gronow 191
Appendix Th omas Bøker Lund and Mari Niva 201
References 211
Index 235
v
Contributors
Anita Borch holds positions as Head of Research and Research Professor
at the Consumption Research Norway (SIFO) at Oslo Metropolitan
University. Her scientifi c publications cover a range of consumer-related subjects,
including food-related insecurity in the academic discourse and in the Nordic
countries.
Marianne Pipping Ekstr ö m is a sociologist, docent at the Department of Food
and Nutrition and Sport Science at University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She
researches food habits, food culture and the division of labour in households,
both nationally and internationally, mostly with a gender perspective.
Jukka Gronow is a professor emeritus of sociology at Uppsala University,
Sweden, and a docent at the University of Helsinki, Finland. In addition to food
studies, he has published on the sociology of consumption, history of sociology,
social theory and the social and cultural history of the Soviet Union.
Sara Hach was research assistant at the Department of Food and Resource
Economics at University of Copenhagen, Denmark in the period 2012–13 and
was involved in data management and analyses. She works as a consultant at the
Danish Evaluation Institute.
Lotte Holm is a professor of sociology of food at the Department of Food and
Resource Economics at University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She researches
food consumption and eating and food related policies, oft en in large
multidisciplinary and comparative projects.
Nina Kahma is a university researcher at the Centre for Consumer Society
Research at the University of Helsinki. She has studied inequality and
consumption from diff erent angles, and her current interest concerns service use
and design.
Unni Kj æ rnes is a research professor at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway,
and a docent at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Her research has dealt with
the consumption of food, but also other consumption areas, oft en with a focus
on policy related issues.
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Contributors vii
Drude Skov Lauridsen is a PhD student at the Department of Food and
Resource Economics at University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She is writing a
thesis on the maternal responsibility for children’s feeding in relation to the
stigmatization of maternal obesity in childhood obesity prevention.
Th omas B ø ker Lund is Associate Professor of sociology of food and rural
sociology at the Department of Food and Resource Economics at University of
Copenhagen, Denmark. He has conducted research about political food
consumption and food- related poverty, among others.
Johanna Mä k elä is Professor of food culture at the University of Helsinki and
the Dean of the Faculty of Educational Sciences. She researches meals, future
food consumption, responsible food chain, food classifi cations and practices in
everyday life contexts, Nordic eating habits, and fat wars.
Mari Niva is a professor of food culture (2018–21) at the University of Helsinki.
She studies food choices and practices and the social and cultural aspects of
eating. Currently her research focuses on sustainable and political food
consumption.
Preface
Th is book reports from a collaboration between sociologists from four Nordic
countries, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, which has stretched over
almost twenty years. Results from two studies conducted by the collective of
authors with fi ft een years apart are presented: A Day of Food in Nordic Countries,
A comparative investigation of eating habits in modern everyday life (1997), and
Food in Nordic Everyday Life: A comparative survey of change and stability in
eating patterns (2012). Th e idea that eating is a social phenomenon that is core
to wider issues of social structure and daily life has motivated these studies and
acted as the general guideline in the comparative analysis of eating patterns and
their change over time.
Th e study design was devised together by the project partners: Marianne
Pipping Ekstr ö m, University of Gothenburg; Jukka Gronow, University of
Helsinki; Lotte Holm, University of Copenhagen; Unni Kj æ rnes, National
Institute for Consumer Research, Oslo; Th omas B ø ker Lund, University of
Copenhagen; Johanna M ä kel ä , University of Helsinki; and Mari Niva, National
Consumer Research Centre/University of Helsinki. Unni Kjæ r nes coordinated
the study in 1997 and Lotte Holm the study in 2012.
Results from the fi rst study from 1997 were published in the book: Unni
Kj æ rnes (ed) ( 2001 ) E ating Patterns. A Day in the Lives of Nordic Peoples . Oslo:
National Institute for Consumer Research.
viii
Acknowledgements
Th e two studies reported in the book were supported fi nancially by the Joint
Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Social Sciences (NOS-S, 1997)
and for the Humanities and the Social Sciences (NOSHS, 2012).
Several researchers have contributed to the analyses, and the project partners
are grateful to Nina Kahma from the University of Helsinki, Anita Borch from
the National Institute for Consumer Research, Oslo, and Sara Hach and Drude
Schou Lauridsen from the University of Copenhagen.
Some of the chapters in this book are slightly revised versions of articles that
have been published earlier. Th e authors and publishers would like to thank the
following publishers for permission to reprint:
Anthropology of Food for: Kahma, N., M ä kel ä , J., Niva, M., and Lund, T.B.,
2014 . Associations between meal complexity and social context in four Nordic
countries. A nthropology of food , S10, pp. 1–22.
Elsevier for: Lund, T.B. & Gronow, J., 2014 . Destructuration or continuity? Th e
daily rhythm of eating in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden in 1997 and
2012 (2014). A ppetite , 82, pp. 143–53; and for: Holm, L., Lauridsen, D., Lund, T.B.,
Gronow, J., Niva, M., M ä kel ä , J., 2016. Changes in the social context and conduct
of eating in four Nordic countries between 1997 and 2012. A ppetite , 103,
pp. 358–68.
Gothenburg University for: Holm, L., Lauridsen, D.S., Gronow, J., Kahma, N.,
Kj æ rnes, U., Lund, T.B., M ä kel ä , J., Niva, M., 2015. Th e food we eat in Nordic
countries – some changes between 1997 and 2012. In K. Bergstr ö m et al., eds.
Mat ä r mer ä n mat . G ö teborg: G ö teborg Universitet, pp. 227–46.
Springer for: Niva, M., M ä kel ä , J., Kahma, N., and Kj æ rnes, U., 2014. Eating
Sustainably? Practices and Background Factors of Ecological Food Consumption
in Four Nordic Countries. J ournal of Consumer Policy , 37(4), pp. 465–84.
Springer Nature for: Holm, L., Lund, T.B. and Niva, M., 2015. Eating practices
and diet quality: a population study of four Nordic countries. E uropean Journal
of Clinical Nutrition , 69(7), pp. 791–8.
ix