Changing Families, Changing Food (Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life)

Approaching family through the lens of food, this book provides a new perspective on the diversity of contemporary family life, challenging received ideas about the decline of the family meal, the individualization of food choice and the relationship between professional advice on healthy eating and the everyday practices of 'doing family'. The relationship between families and food is high on the current political agenda, the subject of enormous media attention and the focus of intense emotional investment. With debates about the quality of school meals, high-profile attempts to improve people's cooking skills and widespread concern about growing obesity rates, there has never been a more urgent need to reassess the family context which shapes our everyday lives, including decisions about 'healthy eating'. Changing Families, Changing Food addresses these key concerns, adopting an inter-disciplinary perspective. Approaching family through the lens of food, this book provides a new perspective on the diversity of contemporary family. It challenges many received ideas including the decline of the family meal, the individualisation of food choice and the relationship between professional advice on healthy eating and the everyday practices of 'doing family' Front Matter....Pages i-xv Introduction: Food as a Lens on Family Life....Pages 1-16 Front Matter....Pages 17-17 Off to a Healthy Start: Food Support Benefits of Low-Income Women in Pregnancy....Pages 19-34 (New) Family Formation and the Organisation of Food in Households: Who Does What and Why?....Pages 35-56 Pregnancy Police? Maternal Bodies, Surveillance and Food....Pages 57-74 Front Matter....Pages 75-75 ‘She’s got a really good attitude to healthy food...Nannan’s drilled it into her’: Inter-generational Relations within Families....Pages 77-92 Fathers, Food and Family Life....Pages 93-117 ‘I don’t go in for all that scaremongering’: Parental Attitudes to Food Safety Risk....Pages 118-128 Front Matter....Pages 129-129 Myths of the Family Meal: Re-reading Edwardian Life Histories....Pages 131-145 Food as a Medium for Emotional Management of the Family: Avoiding Complaint and Producing Love....Pages 146-164 The Governing of Family Meals in the UK and Japan....Pages 165-184 Front Matter....Pages 185-185 Eating In Time, Eating Up Time....Pages 187-204 Making Healthy Families?....Pages 205-225 Institutional Dining Rooms: Food Ideologies and the Making of a Person....Pages 226-245 Conclusion....Pages 246-250 Back Matter....Pages 251-292 With debates about the quality of school meals, high-profile attempts to improve people's cooking skills and widespread concern about growing obesity rates, a reassessment of family eating habits has never been a more topical. 'Changing Families, Changing Food' addresses key concerns