Food, Families and Work 9780857857507, 9780857855084, 9781350001817, 9780857855978

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Food, Families and Work

ii

Food, Families and Work By Rebecca O’Connell and Julia Brannen

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2016 © Rebecca O’Connell and Julia Brannen, 2016 Rebecca O’Connell and Julia Brannen have asserted their right under the Copyright, ­Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Authors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: PB: 978-0-8578-5508-4 HB: 978-0-8578-5750-7 ePDF: 978-0-8578-5597-8 ePub: 978-0-8578-5785-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

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For our working parents, who made sure we were fed as children, and for our children for sharing the foodwork and being happy with often hurried cooking

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Contents List of tables  viii List of figures  x Acknowledgements  xi The authors  xii

1 Introduction, themes and methods  1 2 Is parental employment linked to children’s diets? The survey

evidence  13 3 Who does the foodwork in working families?  31 4 When do working families eat together? Families, meals and mealtimes  55 5 How much power do children wield over what they eat?  81 6 How does children’s food play out across the different spaces of their lives?  99 7 Changing families, changing food: How do children’s diets change over time?  119 8 In conclusion  141 Appendix I  151 Appendix II  153 Appendix III  155 Notes  157 References  161 Author Index  177 Subject Index  181

List of tables Table 1.1  NS-SEC by income level: Qualitative sample Wave 1 7 Table 1.2 Maternal hours of employment: Qualitative sample Wave 1 8 Table 1.3  Working patterns of couples with dependent children 9 Table 2.1 Regression coefficients showing associations between ­dietary components (provided in the ALSPAC through PCA of food frequency questionnaires), maternal ­employment and other socio-economic characteristics (for children aged 18 months–10 years) 22 Table 2.2 Regression coefficients showing associations between dietary components (identified by PCA of HSE 2007/8 diet data)/other direct measures of food ­consumption, ­maternal employment and other socio-economic ­characteristics (for children aged 18 months–10 years) 25 Table 2.3 Regression coefficients showing associations between direct measure of fruit and vegetable consumption (NDNS)/a nutritional score (calculated from nutrition data in the NDNS 2009–10), maternal employment and other socio-economic characteristics (for children aged 18 months–10 years) 27 Table 3.1 Understanding Society: Shared cooking by mothers’ hours of work 35 Table 3.2 Men’s changing contribution to foodwork in dual parent households at Waves 1 and 2 (n = 30) 36 Table 4.1 Summary of findings on children eating with parents from three quantitative data sets 56 Table 4.2 Patterns of eating by mothers’ employment hours at Waves 1 and 2 61 Table 4.3 Patterns of eating in the working week Waves 1 and 2: qualitative data 63 Table 5.1  Parent and child control of children’s food 84

LIST OF TABLES

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Table 6.1 Childcare use of children in three age groups (preschool, primary and secondary) at Waves 1 and 2 102 Table 6.2 Type of childcare setting of the study children at Waves 1 and 2 103 Table 7.1 Change and continuity in perceptions of children’s diets Wave 1 to Wave 2 124 Table I.1 Number of target children participating in interview ­activities 151 Table II.1  Participation and non-participation at Wave 2 154

List of figures Figure 4.1 Drawings of favourite foods at Wave 1 and Wave 2 by Malkeet 70 Figure 4.2 Hayley’s drawing of a favourite meal (pizza and pasta) at Wave 1 73 Figure 7.1 Analytic framework: influences on perceived quality of children’s diet 124

Acknowledgements T

he authors would like to thank the many people who played a part in this study, in particular our colleagues who constituted the other members of the research team at Thomas Coram Research Unit at various points in or throughout the study: Charlie Owen, Antonia Simon, Katie Hollingworth, Abigail Knight, Ann Mooney and Penny Mellor. The authors also wish to thank the funders of the two phases of the study. Phase 1 was funded as a collaborative grant between the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and in October 2009 by the Department of Health (DH) when responsibility was transferred to this Department (RES-190–25-0010). Phase 2 was funded by the ESRC and the DH (ES/J012556/1). We are most grateful to Dr Jane Barrett and Danielle DeFeo (DH) and Helen Atkinson (FSA) for their guidance and enthusiasm throughout both phases. Thanks are also due to the project Advisory Group for valuable advice and support. In addition, Carol Devine, Cornell University, and Alison Lennox, University of Surrey, provided methodological assistance in developing the Diet Quality Indices and input in constructing the nutritional scores developed for the study. Thanks also to Tracy Modha at the Thomas Coram Research Unit for preparing the qualitative data for archiving and to Ruth Wright for helpful comments on draft chapters. We are grateful in addition to colleagues at MRC HNR and NatCen Social Research for their help in drawing a qualitative sample from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS). For access to the various surveys that we subjected to some secondary analysis we wish to acknowledge their support.1 Most of all we are grateful to the children and parents who generously gave their valuable time to participate in the study and granted us permission to reproduce their photographs and drawings. Without them the study would not have happened.

The authors Julia Brannen is Professor of Sociology of the Family, in the Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education and visiting professor at the University of Bergen, Norway. She has an international reputation for her work on family life, work-life issues, intergenerational relations and for her expertise in mixed methods, biographical approaches and cross-national research. Rebecca O’Connell is a Senior Research Officer in the Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education. She is a social anthropologist whose research interests focus on the intersection of care and work, particularly foodwork and childcare. Rebecca is co-convenor of the British Sociological Association Food Study Group. She is currently leading a European Research Council funded study focused on families and food in hard times in Portugal, the UK and Norway (www.foodinhardtimes.org).

1 Introduction, themes and methods

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hildren’s food is at the centre of global concerns about nutritional inequalities and rising obesity levels. In the UK, debate about the nation’s diet and children’s diets in particular is taking place within the context of a whole range of social and economic changes, one of which is the changing pattern of family life. Moreover, food is an increasingly salient issue for families in the context of economic austerity measures and rises in global food and fuel prices that have reduced disposable income. With the growth of employment of mothers with young children in both Western and non-Western societies, dual earning households have become the norm. Public anxieties about the inadequacy of children’s diets suggest explanatory factors including working parents’ lack of time and, because of work, a supposed decline in ‘family meals’ and increasing use of commercially produced food. While being set in Britain, the book has wider resonances, as it concerns how parents feed their children – in most societies, it is typically the mother who takes on this role – while attending to the need to generate income as well as other needs of their families. In the UK, an emphasis on parental employment as a route out of child poverty (DWP & DfE 2011) leads to public policy interest in what is known as ‘work-life balance’ and in the well-being of children and parents in working families (Working Families 2014). However, some survey research in the UK and the US has found a negative relationship between maternal employment and children’s dietary intakes. Yet, little is known about how food fits into the working lives of families and how mothers, fathers and children negotiate everyday food practices in the context of parents’ employment, including the role that children themselves play, and the ways that food and eating in families change over time. Since the working hours

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of British fathers are among the highest in Europe (Crompton and Lyonette 2006), the UK is a particularly pertinent case study for investigating families, food and work. The book has its origins in a study conducted in two phases between 2009 and 2014. Supported by the ESRC jointly with the FSA and latterly the DH, the study was funded in response to a bid that invited both the further exploitation of an existing national data set and the exploration of ‘dietary decisions’ of working families with young children. Its policy relevance lay in a concern about the adequacy of children’s diets in the context of rising levels of maternal employment. The study’s ‘long view’, or in other words, its longitudinal research strategy, afforded greater possibilities than a cross-sectional design for understanding how and why individuals and families eat as they do. Through the qualitative data collected as part of the study, the book shows how food practices changed over time. In addition, it illuminates the embedded practices and processes that shape children’s diets in British working families. How do the demands of parents’ paid work shape and influence family food practices? What is the gender division of foodwork in dual earner families and how do parents account for it? When do working families eat together and what affects this? How do children negotiate food and eating with their parents? What do children of working parents eat at home, childcare and school and how do parents manage children’s diets across settings? How do changes in the eating habits of children and families relate to interventions in and the shifting contexts of family life, such as transitions in children’s lives and changes in parents’ jobs and working hours and family income? Focusing on families in England, both at a moment in time but also over time, Food, Families and Work addresses these questions.

Conceptual approaches It has been suggested that ‘many claims about contemporary meal patterns may be seen as a criticism of the working woman’ (Bugge and Almas 2006: 206). Outlining how researchers may be able to ‘put children in the center of our research on “children, work and family” without blaming employed mothers for real or imagined social problems’, Garey and Arendell (2001: 296) draw on the work of C. Wright Mills. Sharing his vision of a sociological approach which must ‘take account of context and structure as well as individual subjectivities’ in order to ‘create a better “fit” with complex and diverse realties’ (Brannen and Nilsen 2005: 412), the approach taken in the book is that of situating children’s diets in the context of everyday working family life.

INTRODUCTION, THEMES AND METHODS

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Public health policy has attached a lot of value to individual consumer ‘choice’, considering choices made about food simply as a matter of individual preference, in the process obscuring the socio-structural conditions in which food practices evolve and neglecting the cultural and emotional factors that influence nutrition (Attree 2006: 67). In the book we have chosen to eschew the vocabulary of dietary decisions because it is imbued with ‘rational choice’ models of consumer behaviour. In rational choice models ‘decisions’ or ‘choices’ are understood to be influenced by relatively stable attitudes and beliefs which individuals carry with them through life, and from one setting to another, selecting which elements are relevant for deciding on a course of action (Whitford 2002: 325; Southerton, Díaz-Méndez and Warde 2012: 20–1). The implication is that to change behaviour (such as unhealthy eating habits) the challenge is to change the attitudes that shape consumer choices – for example by providing information about healthy eating. However, the relationship between ‘attitudes’, ‘values’ and ‘behaviour’ is not as straightforward as the rational choice paradigm assumes (Shove 2010). Rather there is a ‘gap’ between ‘values’ and ‘action’ (Warde 2011) so that, for example, knowledge of what is ‘healthy’ to eat does not necessarily lead to ‘healthy eating’ (Worsely 2002). In this book, we have chosen instead to conceptualize matters to do with children’s and families’ food and eating as ‘food practices’. In order to understand and explain human action, the aim has been to focus upon what people do. The concept of ‘food practices’ acknowledges that understanding food and eating requires approaches that confront ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu 1977) – the situatedness of (food) practices in the everyday routines and social relations of the lives of children and parents. This entails paying attention to the constraints and affordances of the daily schedules of parents and children and how these intersect; the role of food in gender and generational relations; and, since the children of employed parents may eat in a range of settings, the consideration of children’s diet intake across contexts. The framing of the research problem in these ways also required attentiveness to the meanings of food and eating beyond nutrition, that is, an acknowledgement that food is also about sociality, pleasure, power and care. The book focuses on children at two points in time: when children were aged between two and twelve years and two years later when the same children were aged between four and fourteen years. Given the speed with which children develop, it is expected that children’s food practices change over relatively short time periods. In this endeavour, the book adopts a life course perspective, which by its nature is concerned with temporality. Elder, Johnson and Crosnoe refer to the life course as consisting of agegraded patterns that are embedded in social institutions and in history. This view is grounded in a contextualist perspective and emphasizes

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the implications of social pathways in historical time and place for human development and ageing (2006: 4). It examines interactions over time between structural constraints, institutional rules, subjective meanings and decision-making (Elder 1985; Elder and Giele 2009; Heinz and Kruger 2001: 33). Critical to the life course approach is the timing of social transitions, especially in relation to the domain of health. For example, where food practices are established early in life they have implications for well-being later in life. The life course approach brings to the fore the relationship between individual development and situational factors such as community and social institutions, peer networks and families in which lives unfold; and the ways in which individuals and groups, including families, adjust to both expected and unexpected transitions and in response to societal and economic circumstances. Whether a life course transition or ‘moment’ is consequential can depend upon timing and the resources to which individuals have access (Holland and Thomson 2009: 458). Consistent with a sociology of childhood perspective, children are conceptualized in the book not only as ‘becomings’ but also as ‘beings’. This entails treating children as social actors in their own right, acknowledging, for example, that they have likes and dislikes and recognizing the ways in which they use food to construct identities, forge connections with others and enact power and control.

The study The study upon which the book is based was a two-phase multi-method research project.1 Phase 1 of the study (also referred to as Wave 1) was conducted between 2009 and 2011 and Phase 2 (also referred to as Wave 2) between 2011 and 2013. Both phases included quantitative and qualitative components.

The quantitative research In Phase 1, the quantitative work examined the effects of maternal/dual parental employment in England upon the quality of children’s diets. Existing research suggested an association between parental (maternal) employment and children’s (poor) diet (Hawkins, Cole and Law 2009), based on analysis of a UK data set, the MCS, and this finding was also supported by some US research (e.g. Crepinsek and Burstein 2004; McIntosh et al. 2008). One aim of

INTRODUCTION, THEMES AND METHODS

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this study was to test this hypothesis by investigating this association in other UK data sets. Secondary analysis of the new rolling NDNS Year 1 (2008–9) data and of two other large-scale national surveys, the Health Survey for England (HSE 2008) and the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), were carried out (Chapter 2). At Phase 2 further secondary analysis of NDNS and the MCS was undertaken to examine the evidence about the relationship of maternal employment and the quality of children’s diets and how foodwork was shared in working families. Secondary analysis of the MCS, NDNS and another survey, Understanding Society (US), was also carried out to examine the relationship between maternal employment and children’s participation in ‘family meals’ (MCS, United States) and to explore the relationship between frequency of ‘family meals’ and healthier/less healthy overall diets (NDNS). These analyses updated the NDNS and other analyses carried out for Wave 1 about food in families with employed parents and, despite some limitations, provided contextual information for the qualitative longitudinal research which was able to add new information and explore the quantitative findings further.

The qualitative research In addition and in parallel to the quantitative secondary analysis in Phase 1, forty-seven working parents and their children were sampled from the NDNS England Year 2 (2009–10). Purposive sampling was employed to recruit the households for the qualitative work once we were granted access to the NDNS data. The total NDNS UK sample was relatively small (N = 1000 households a year), with just over 800 for England. Because we had to make decisions about the sample at one point in time, we made the following decisions. First, both parents or a lone parent had to be in paid employment. Second, because of the small number of young children in the NDNS that met the sampling criteria, it was necessary to include a wider age range of children than was ideal. Thus, we decided to recruit families with a child aged between two and ten years2 who had taken part in the 2009–10 NDNS survey. Thirteen of the children were aged three years or under, thirteen were aged four to six years and twenty-one were aged seven to twelve years.3 Given the resource limitations, the qualitative sample could not be extended beyond forty-seven families: twenty-seven containing girls and twenty boys. Third, our sampling frame also aimed to represent children with ‘healthier’ and ‘less healthy’ diets based on an index or ‘score’, using NDNS data for the children at the time. These scores were developed for the qualitative study.4 Fourth, we sought to include in the qualitative sample families from white British and other ethnic groups and a spread of higher- and lower-income

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families. The NDNS sample was dispersed throughout England and likewise the subsample of families for the qualitative work. In contrast to the quantitative work, the qualitative methods were employed to understand how parental employment shaped the eating habits and the diets of young children, and the role different settings (both inside and outside the home) and children themselves played. While ideally it would have been preferable to include formal observation methods, resources and the nature of the sample did not permit this. To enable the participation of children in the wide age range a variety of methods were deployed flexibly at both phases: interviews, drawing methods, and, with some children, photo elicitation interviews in which children photographed foods and meals consumed within and outside the home and discussed these with the researcher at a later visit (see Table I.1, Appendix I). Some activities were the same at both waves while others were added to take account of what worked well at Wave 1 and the increased ages of the children. The data generated from the activities informed the family case studies and analyses and are also used to illustrate and augment the spoken or written accounts. As described elsewhere (O’Connell 2013), the visual and interactive methods enriched the analyses by generating data which confirmed, complemented, elaborated and contradicted data from other sources (Brannen 2005b), in this case children’s and parents’ oral interviews. In order to situate the qualitative data in relation to wider social trends concerning children’s dietary intakes and eating practices, the intensive analysis of the forty-seven families was further contextualized in relation to the secondary analysis of the UK data sets. Semi-structured interviews were carried out at Phase 1 with the parent who defined themself as the main food provider5 and sometimes with an additional parent or care-provider who was involved in family foodwork and also wished to participate in the interview. Of the forty-one dual parent households that took part at Wave 1, men participated in interviews in seven cases. In one of those, the father was the main respondent. It should be remembered that the interview data represent reported behaviour and are therefore to some degree likely to be socially desirable responses, despite the fact that we as researchers emphasized that we were not nutritionists. At Phase 2, further in-depth qualitative interviews were carried out with thirty-six of the same families who agreed to take part. Of the thirty dual parent households interviewed at Wave 2, fathers participated in interviews in six cases, in two of which fathers were the main respondents. This phase repeated the same questions from Phase 1 and additionally asked about change, in particular the transitions and experiences that children and parents encountered and how these shaped food intake and practices over time. Some new questions were added about the gender division of labour and

INTRODUCTION, THEMES AND METHODS

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about foodwork in the changing societal context of the rising food prices in the period (Defra 2014: 8).

The qualitative sample At Wave 1 the income ranges of the households were divided as follows: higher income (above £50,000), middle income (£30,000–£49,999) and lower income (under £30,000). However, the measure of household income used was not equivalized (i.e. it had not been recalculated to take into account the different financial resource requirements of different household types). More of the families fell into the highest income bracket (22/47) compared with the lowest bracket (9/47) and the middle bracket (16/47). The National Statistics Socio Economic Classification (NS-SEC) was applied to households in the qualitative study. The three-class version of the NS-SEC was used to classify households, with the highest status person in a household, who was usually but not always the father, being considered as representative of the household. The three classes are summarized as follows: 1. Managerial and professional occupations; 2. Intermediate occupations; 3. Routine and manual occupations, never worked and long-term unemployed.6 At Wave 1, a disproportionate number was concentrated in the intermediate occupational group (24/47) as compared with the professional/managerial group (18/47) and with very few in routine manual occupations (5/47). Table 1.1 gives the distribution of the sample according to NS-SEC (derived from qualitative interview data) and the income range within each class. It was not possible to sample on the basis of maternal hours of employment because this question was not asked in the NDNS. Instead, this information was collected in a screening questionnaire when families were approached to take part in the qualitative study. The distribution of maternal hours of employment in the sample at Wave 1 is shown in Table 1.2. ‘Full-time’ (FT) was defined as employed thirty hours or more per week; ‘long part-time’ (PT long) as sixteen to twenty-nine hours and ‘short part-time’ (PT short) as working less than sixteen hours per week.

Table 1.1  NS-SEC by income level: Qualitative sample Wave 1 NS-SEC

Number

Income

1

18

16 high; 1 mid; 1 low

2

24

5 high; 14 mid; 5 low

5

1 high; 1 mid; 3 low

3 Total

47

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Food, Families and Work

Table 1.2  Maternal hours of employment: Qualitative sample Wave 1 Mothers’ hours

Distribution at Wave 1

FT 30

18

PT long (16–29)

20

PT short (16)

8

Not working

1

Total

47

Thirty-six out of the forty-seven households that participated at Wave 1 took part at Wave 2 (Appendix II), giving a 77 per cent retention rate. Of those eleven households that ‘dropped out’ at Wave 2, five included fulltime employed mothers. One mother at Wave 2 had reduced her hours of employment from full to long part-time, while one mother had increased her hours from long part-time to full-time. There were thus twelve mothers in fulltime paid employment at Wave 2 (12/36). This latter number is smaller than at Wave 1 (18/47) but roughly the same proportion of the sample. There were six lone-parent (female headed) households at both waves. The working patterns of the couples with dependent children at each wave are set out in Table 1.3. At both waves, the most common type (about two-thirds of cases) is the ‘traditional 1.5 earner model’, wherein the male (father) works greater than or equal to thirty hours per week and the female (mother) works less than thirty hours per week (male full-time, MFT, and female part-time, FPT). The next most common pattern is the ‘dual full time earner’ model, in which both partners in the couple are working full-time (greater than or equal to thirty hours per week); this is the household type in about a third of the cases at each wave. At Wave 1, there is one case of the ‘male breadwinner’ model in which the male is employed full-time and the female is unemployed. There is also one case of a non-traditional 1.5 earner model, in which the female is employed full-time and the male part-time. In most households, there were small changes to either or both of the parents’ working hours between waves. However, only a small number of these changes were significant; in other words, the model of combined working hours changed only in a couple of households. Specifically, one household moved from the ‘traditional 1.5 earner model’ (MFT & FPT) to the ‘dual FT earner’ (MFT & FFT) model, as the mother took on additional hours. One household moved from the ‘non-traditional 1.5 earner model’ (MPT & FFT) to the ‘dual FT earner’ (MFT & FFT) model, as the father started a new job with longer hours. Finally, two households moved from the ‘traditional 1.5 earner

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Table 1.3  Working patterns of couples with dependent children Type

Wave 1

Wave 2

Traditional 1.5 earner model MFT and FPT

24

17

Dual FT earner MFT & FFT

15

11

Male breadwinner MFT

1

2

Non-traditional 1.5 earner model MPT & FFT

1

0

41

30

Total

NB. One ‘Male Breadwinner‘ family at W1 became a lone parent at W2.

model’ (MFT & FPT) to the ‘male breadwinner’ (MFT) model, in one case because the mother stopped working due to a serious illness and in the other because the mother had left paid work and returned to education.

Analysing the data In the book we have made extensive use of the family case studies we created from the qualitative material in order to illuminate the conditions under which different households negotiate food and eating. Extensive summaries for each household were written at both waves, based on all the data collected, on the main topics of investigation. Similar to the approach adopted by Harden et al. (2010), the process involved developing a view of the family as a whole while retaining a sense of the different perspectives from which the bigger picture was formed. Integration of the data did not therefore subordinate one view of the world to another (Mason 2006) and preserved a sense of the complexity of family life. In analysing the data longitudinally from both waves, we further developed the case studies of the thirty-six families that took part at Wave 2. We compared accounts of practices reported at Wave 1 with those reported at Wave 2, drawing out continuities and changes in children’s and parents’ lives and interpreting food practices in relation to the transitions children and parents had experienced and the particular social contexts of their lives. To create consistency in the data analysis, the team prepared the case summaries according to a template. Quality was also ensured by working with all the cases – not only those for which the team had done the fieldwork. The project’s objective, in accordance with its research design, was to combine quantitative with qualitative data analysis. We set out to do this by linking a large-scale data set to a qualitative study. There are however

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relatively few examples of this (Elliott et al. 2010). Writing the book has provided a unique opportunity to examine the use of a mix of methods in the context of a longitudinal qualitative research design (O’Connell et al. 2010; Brannen and Moss 2012). Of relevance to this discussion is the fact that the framing of the research questions in the quantitative part of the work and the qualitative study afforded different possibilities. The NDNS data focused on the nutritional value of what children (and adults) eat while the focus of the qualitative study was on the meaning and significance of food and how food fitted into the daily lives of working families (Brannen and O’Connell 2015). However, as we note in Chapter 8, linking qualitative and quantitative material in the writing up of the study presents its own problems. As this book demonstrates, the different types of analysis need to be read alongside each other. It is only in Chapters 3 and 4 that qualitative and quantitative data appear together, while in other chapters the qualitative analyses complement the quantitative evidence. Gaining consent was a key consideration of this study. For the first time in the NDNS, survey participants were asked whether they agreed to being contacted by other researchers. Methods of contacting and negotiating consent with families who had taken part in the NDNS in order to recruit them to what was a new study were agreed with the data owners and survey administrators. Since the survey was ongoing when the project started, the team drew a sample under secure conditions from the ‘data enclave’ at the survey administrators’ (NatCen’s) offices. Information was sent to potential participants and once general agreement was secured from the forty-seven families, consent was carefully negotiated with both children and parents taking part in the qualitative study, with separate procedures to cover interviews and the photo elicitation exercise. Permission was also sought from children for researcher use of other materials such as paper plates on which children drew their favourite or least favourite foods and meals. Children’s drawings were displayed on the project website if they agreed. In addition, where children wanted to keep their own work this was respected. Consent was also negotiated concerning the archiving of the qualitative data in the archive of the UK Data Service (see Appendix 1). Pseudonyms are used throughout to protect the identity of participants.

The chapters Contextualizing the study within broader contemporary parental employment trends and concerns about children’s diet, Chapter 2 examines the evidence from the UK and the US that links parental (maternal) employment to the

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quality of children’s diets. It also interrogates new evidence from several UK large-scale data sets that were analysed as part of the study upon which the book is based. Chapters 3 to 7 draw upon the qualitative material and adopt both thematic and case approaches to examine the food practices of children and parents and how they are situated in the particular contexts and conditions of their lives. Chapter 3 examines the domestic division of foodwork – this includes planning meals, procuring and preparing food, cleaning up after eating and taking on responsibility for children’s health and diets – in dual earner families. Following a brief review of the literature, the chapter draws on secondary analysis from two studies – the NDNS and Understanding Society (the UK’s national household panel study) – to examine the extent to which parents share cooking and how this relates to parents’ working hours. These issues are also further examined in the linked qualitative study to see how the division of foodwork changes over time and why, and the ways in which parents account for the household division of labour. Other aspects are also considered, including outsourcing of foodwork and food budgeting in the context of the current era of rising food prices. Chapter 4 examines the conditions under which working families eat together and the timing of meals. It describes the findings concerning the frequency of eating together and its association with maternal employment in three national UK data sets. The chapter examines whether the work hours of the parents allow them to eat with their children during the working week (Monday to Friday); this analysis is done by taking a qualitative longitudinal perspective, thus allowing us to interrogate the stability of these patterns over time. The cases chosen for presentation in the chapter demonstrate the key factors that contribute to the development of meal patterns in households during the working week and the social processes at work. Following on from Chapter 4, which suggests that parents in some families take into account their children’s preferences when planning meals, Chapter 5 focuses on the control children and parents exercise over food in families. Drawing only upon the qualitative material, the chapter examines the extent of parental control over children’s eating and the importance of resources and parents’ conceptions of ‘the child’. The chapter does not enter polarized debates about who does, or should, control children’s food in families, but simply analyses the considerable variation between families and the change in the control that parents exercise as children grow older. As Chapter 5 illustrates, parents are not always willing or able to control what children eat. Moreover, for most children the home is only one of the settings in which they eat. Chapter 6 examines how children’s eating plays out across the sites of home, school and childcare. It explores some of the strategies and practices by which parents manage children’s diets across

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different contexts, some of the concerns that arise for them in doing so and how these change over time. Chapter 7 considers the cases holistically from a temporal perspective. It reflects on the ways in which changes in food and eating are related to a variety of life course transitions and changes in adults’ and children’s lives. It identifies the key points at which dietary changes happen in the lives of the study families, the extent to which changes are expected or unexpected and how they are understood by children and parents. Finally, in Chapter 8 we revisit the main concerns of the book. We also consider the methodological issues in linking a quantitative data analysis of large-scale data sets to qualitative studies. Taking a policy lens, we explore the potential and limitations for dietary interventions within the context of debates about ‘food choice’ which continue to dominate public health policy.

2 Is parental employment linked to children’s diets? The survey evidence

W

orking mothers continue to be subject to intense moral scrutiny in public discourse and parenting in general has become a more intensive process (Fox 2009; Hays 1996). It is not difficult in the UK to find examples of media and government blaming ‘working mothers’ for suboptimal child ‘outcomes’ including perceived inadequacies of children’s diets. As Sweeting and West (2005: 93) note, a prominent politician commenting on the May 2004 UK House of Commons Health Committee report on obesity suggested on a national BBC radio news programme that obesity could be related to family breakdown, infrequent family meals and mothers’ employment. More recently, the UK House of Commons Health Committee reported that ‘changing patterns of consumption are in part a response to the far-reaching social changes of the last 50 years, including a greater number of women working outside the home, longer working hours, and higher levels of disposable income’ (cited in Hawkins, Cole and Law 2008). Exploring a possible link between parental employment and children’s diet is important since the rise of maternal and dual parental employment is one of the key recent social changes that have impacted children’s lives in the UK (Layard and Dunn 2009). Based on the Labour Force Survey data, the economic activity rate for women aged sixteen to sixty-four rose from 53 per cent in 1971 (2nd quarter) to 66 per cent in 2011 (1st quarter). However, this masks variation in family type with an increase among lone parents from 44.6 per cent in 1997 (2nd quarter) to 57.3 per cent (4th quarter) and a slight fall in other family types in the same period (74.1 per cent to 73.8 per cent) (Spence 2011). With the rapid growth in the employment of mothers with

14

Food, Families and Work

young children across Europe, dual earning households have become the norm (Eurostat 2009). The most striking change in employment rates has occurred among mothers of young children in Britain (Berthoud 2007), with 65 per cent of couples in work in 2013 (ONS 2013). Some studies have observed a significant relationship between maternal employment and overweight in childhood, with more hours or full-time maternal employment associated with children’s increased risk of obesity (see, for example, Anderson, Butcher and Levine 2003; Phipps, Lethbridge and Burton 2006; Hawkins, Cole and Law 2008; Brown et al. 2010; Gaina et al. 2009; Morrissey, Dunifon and Kalil 2011). It has been suggested that part of the explanation for this observed relationship can be found in children’s dietary intake (e.g. Cawley and Lui 2007; Hawkins, Cole and Law 2009) and habits, for example, participation in family meals, which are said to be protective of children’s health (e.g. Neumark-Sztainer et al. 2003; see Chapter 4). While there is consistency in some of the research evidence, there is also inconsistency. This chapter reviews selected studies about the relationship between maternal employment and children’s dietary intake. It also seeks to identify gaps in the literature and examine the ways in which the issues are framed theoretically and addressed methodologically. Given the small number of UK studies carried out to date, relevant research from North American and other developed countries will be considered in addition to UK research. It must be noted that the studies represent different social contexts, including work patterns, food environments and policy contexts. In the United States, for example, women who return to work after childbirth do so much earlier than in the UK and women and men work longer hours. Regulation of childcare, including food provision, is less consistent in the US than it now is in the UK, although there is great diversity of provision within the latter.1 It should also be noted that the studies generally examine the relationship between maternal employment and children’s diets and not that of fathers. This is not just because it is assumed that mothers rather than fathers are responsible for family food but because, methodologically, there is too little variation in fathers’ employment status at any one time point and over time to make meaningful comparisons with fathers who are not in paid work. In the following section, the US and UK research on the association between parental/maternal employment and children’s diets is discussed. This is followed by some new quantitative analysis undertaken as part of the current study, providing results from three different data sets: the ALSPAC, the HSE and the NDNS. These data were examined to investigate the relationship between maternal employment and diet quality (see also Chapter 4). The final section considers some of the limitations of these quantitative studies in general and suggests what combining these methods with qualitative approaches may add.

IS PARENTAL EMPLOYMENT LINKED TO CHILDREN’S DIETS?

15

Maternal employment and children’s diet: The United States Studying younger children (aged two to five years), Johnson, SmiciklasWright and Crouter (1992a,b) found that maternal employment did not affect the diet quality of children. Johnson and colleagues (1992a) examined measures of nutrient adequacy and nutrient overconsumption in a sample of two- to five-year-old children from the 1985 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes of Individuals (CSFII). Using both bivariate and multivariate analysis techniques, they found that maternal employment status was not correlated with any of the diet quality measures examined. The authors concluded that maternal employment had no detrimental effect on young children’s diets. They also noted several limitations of the study, including non-response, attrition, and lack of employment data at all but the initial point of dietary data collection. Addressing the same issues using the 1987–88 Nationwide Food Consumption Survey (NFCS), Johnson, Smiciklas-Wright and Crouter (1992b) again found that maternal employment did not affect the diet quality of children aged between two and five years. Further, this study found no evidence of a relationship between maternal employment and diet quality, regardless of different levels of mothers’ education, age, presence of male head of household, race, number of children aged less than five, age of child and number of meals eaten away from home. The study did find, however, that children of full-time and part-time working mothers ate more meals at schools and childcare centres than children whose mothers were not employed (Crepinsek and Burstein 2004: 10). A number of more recent North American studies find an association in the case of older children between mothers’ paid work and those children’s dietary intake. For example, Crepinsek and Burstein (2004), analysed differences in nutrition outcomes among children whose mothers work full-time, part-time and not at all. The main sources of data for this study were two national surveys conducted in the mid-1990s: the Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals, which includes the Diet and Health Knowledge Survey, and the Early Childhood and Child Care Study. Results are given by age (broken down into two-year age groups from two years to seventeen years) and gender. In regard to overall diet quality, the authors found that, on balance, children of full-time working mothers had slightly lower Healthy Eating Index (HEI) scores than children of homemakers and on a number of factors (lower intake of iron and fibre, and higher intake of soda and fried potatoes), even after taking into account differences in maternal characteristics. However, preschool-age children and children in households headed by a lone employed mother had higher HEI scores and were more likely to have a ‘good’

16

Food, Families and Work

diet than children of non-working mothers, with authors suggesting that the quality of food in day care has a role to play. Using data from mothers, fathers (where present) and children from just over 300 households in Houston, Texas, McIntosh et al. (2008)2 also observed an association between maternal employment and children’s diet quality with the latter declining with age. They found that the more time a mother spent at work, the more children derived their energy intake from fat and saturated fat, which produced a positive effect on BMI and waist circumference of children. The authors found that mothers’ and fathers’ impacts on their children’s nutrient intake and weight outcomes declined with the age of the child, with more significant effects seen in the 9–11 age group than in the 13–15 age group.

Maternal employment and children’s diet: The UK One of the studies in the UK examining these issues is based on data from the West of Scotland 11 to 16 Study: Teenage Health (Sweeting and West 2005). This study found no association between mothers’ paid work and children’s eating. The authors investigated associations between ‘less healthy eating’ and ‘unhealthy snacking’ at age eleven, and family life (family structure, meals and maternal employment status), together with potential socio-economic confounding variables and gender. Children participated in a school-based survey, with questionnaires also being completed by parents. Analyses, conducted via logistic regression, were based on those with full data on all variables, weighted to account for bias in the return of the parental questionnaires (N = 2146). Data from a dietary inventory, questions on food choice and snacks were used to construct an index that classified ‘less healthy eating’ and ‘unhealthy snacking’. Sweeting and West (2005) found that ‘less healthy eating’ (57 per cent) and ‘unhealthy snacking’ (32 per cent) were associated with greater deprivation, fewer maternal qualifications and being male. Compared with children of fulltime homemakers, the likelihood of ‘less healthy eating’ was reduced among those whose mothers worked part-time (this effect remaining after socioeconomic adjustment), full-time (effect removed after adjustment) or were unemployed, sick or disabled (effect emerging after adjustment). ‘Unhealthy snacking’ was not related to maternal employment, and neither measure was associated with family structure or daily meals. The authors concluded that there was no evidence that family structure or meals were associated with children’s diets, while maternal employment had a positive association.

IS PARENTAL EMPLOYMENT LINKED TO CHILDREN’S DIETS?

17

Contrasting with the size of these effects, relationships between diet and socio-economic status were strong. In contrast, two reported analyses of data about younger children, from the UK’s ALSPAC, did find an association between maternal employment and children’s dietary intake at ages three and seven years. North and Emmett (2000) and Northstone and Emmett (2005) included maternal employment status as a variable in examining children’s diets, which were clustered into three or four patterns using a data-driven approach, Principal Components Analysis (PCA). As part of regular self-completion questionnaires, the primary source of data collection in the ALSPAC, parents were asked to record the frequency of consumption of over fifty different food types for their children. In the sweep when children were aged three, the frequency of consumption of a range of food items was recorded for 10,139 children. A total of 9,550 subjects (68 per cent of original cohort) were available from the sweep at age four and 8,286 (59 per cent) at age seven. Distinct dietary patterns were identified at each age using PCA. These were then related to social and demographic characteristics of the parent and child. Analyses of ALSPAC suggest that the dietary patterns of children aged three (North and Emmett 2000) and seven (Northstone and Emmet 2005) (but not aged four) whose mothers were in paid employment were significantly associated with a ‘junk’ dietary component. However, these studies did not explore children’s diets in relation to working hours and food questionnaires completed by mothers did not include foods eaten away from home (Northstone and Emmet 205: 752). A more recent study by Hawkins, Cole and Law (2009), also focused on younger children (aged five years). This study also found a relationship between part- and full-time employment and children’s diet intakes. Hawkins et al. employed data from the MCS to examine the relationships between maternal hours worked per week (none, 1–20 hours, 21+ hours) and children’s dietary and physical activity/inactivity habits. The authors analysed data from 12,576 singleton children aged five years. Mothers reported information about their employment patterns and their child’s dietary habits (crisps/sweets, fruit/vegetables, sweetened beverage, fruit consumption), physical activity (participation in organized exercise, transport to school) and inactivity (television/ computer use) at age five. Where mothers were employed, the relationships between flexible work arrangements and these health behaviours were also examined. The authors found that, after adjustment for potential confounding and mediating factors, children whose mothers worked part-time or full-time were more likely mainly to consume sweetened beverages between meals and children whose mothers worked full-time were less likely primarily to eat fruit or vegetables between meals or eat three or more portions of fruit per day than children whose mothers had never been employed.

18

Food, Families and Work

Overall, the quantitative research found no consistent relationships between maternal employment status or hours and children’s dietary habits (Hawkins, Cole and Law 2009), although a robust finding seems to be that it is the younger children whose diet intakes may be associated with their mothers’ paid employment. Given it is likely that younger children will be in some form of day care while their mothers do paid work and that food in day care has been seen to link maternal employment with child weight (e.g. Anderson, Butcher and Levine 2003), it is disappointing that only one of these studies considered the role of day care in influencing what children ate outside the home. Discrepancies between findings may be due to differences in study design, the use of differing measures of employment or inclusion of different potential confounding factors, lack of a comprehensive measure of diet quality and differing ages of the children under investigation. Further, these studies have been carried out over a long period of time, dating from the early 1990s until the 2000s and in different social contexts. The influence of maternal employment on children’s health behaviours and diet outcomes no doubt varies depending on the period, the policy context and the environment (Hawkins, Cole and Law 2009). A recent study by Gwozdz et al. (2013) found that maternal employment is not associated with children’s diet intake in Europe (the study sample comprised 16,000 children aged two to nine in eight countries: Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain and Sweden). Comparing these findings to the US and the UK the researchers highlighted the role played by the marketized food environment and childcare quality. Among the methodological limitations of this research3 raised by some authors is the problem of identifying single data sets which permit effective analysis of the relationship between maternal hours of employment and children’s dietary intakes. In particular, the costs associated with collecting detailed dietary data (for example, using diary methods) mean that few largescale data sets collect both detailed dietary data and full socio-demographic data, with the result that some studies have data sets too small to compare subgroups. Some have combined or linked data sets to address these problems. Mixed-methods approaches also provide an alternative. The following section describes the quantitative research undertaken as part of the current mixed-methods study on which the book is based.

Secondary quantitative analysis from the UK: The current study It was recognized at the outset of the study that no national data would provide complete information about children’s diets. However, by analysing

IS PARENTAL EMPLOYMENT LINKED TO CHILDREN’S DIETS?

19

three key national data sets which collect data on children’s diet and mothers’ employment, and also provide information about the socio-demographics of the families, it was hoped it would be possible to explore associations between maternal employment and children’s diet in more detail than had previously been achieved in other UK research. We therefore carried out secondary analysis on the NDNS Year 1 (2008–9) data and on two other largescale national surveys, the HSE (2008) and the ALSPAC, otherwise known as ‘Children of the Nineties’, to examine the association between maternal employment and children’s diet intakes. The ALSPAC is a longitudinal study that has followed approximately 14,000 children from their birth, in 1991–2, into their teenage years. It collected detailed data on children and their families, including data on parental employment and on diet and nutrition. Dietary data were collected at three age time points (approximately three years, four years and seven years) about how often each food item is eaten, coded on a five-point scale from ‘never’ to ‘four to five times a week’. The HSE is an annual survey carried out on behalf of the National Health Service (NHS). Two sections of the HSE interview are concerned with food: the ‘Eating Habits (fat and sugar)’ section asks of children aged two and over about their frequency of consumption (per week) of snacks, sweets, cakes, fizzy drinks and cereals, coded on a five-point scale from ‘6 or more times a week’ to ‘rarely/never’. The ‘Fruit and vegetables (and salt questions)’ section, asks of children aged five and over about the quantity of each food consumed yesterday, coded on a nine-point scale from ‘none’ to ‘eight portions or more’. Three derived variables represent summaries of this diet information: total portions of vegetables (including salad), total portions of ‘sized’ (whole) fruit, total portions of fruit and vegetables. The NDNS is the only rolling UK survey to collect nationally representative and detailed dietary information on children and adults. Dietary information is collected through a detailed four-day food and drink diary. This is transformed in the data set to derived variables showing nutrient intakes and the portions of food consumed by children. The methodological approach to analysing these data sets was largely driven by the available food variables in each of the data sets. For example, the NDNS and HSE each had a derived variable measuring fruit and vegetable consumption. Similarly, the ALSPAC and HSE included food consumption variables, although they reported the foods differently and used different measures of consumption. ALSPAC had used factor analysis to analyse its food consumption data. Factor analysis is a method both of data reduction (by grouping correlated variables together), identifying the underlying dimensions of the data and overcoming the inefficiencies of analysing individual food types (North and Emmett 2000). For this research, we obtained from ALSPAC the factor scores for foods that they had derived (North and Emmett 2000; Northstone, Emmett and Rogers 2008). We conducted a similar factor analysis

20

Food, Families and Work

on the food consumption data from the HSE. It was not possible to carry out factor analysis with the NDNS, as work to convert the variables into the necessary formats was beyond the scope of this research. Additionally, we developed a further measure of diet for use with the NDNS for both the quantitative and qualitative elements of this research (Simon, O’Connell and Stephen 2012). This measure used a set of nutrients (restricted to information provided in the ‘diet feedback’ to participants of the NDNS) to calculate a ‘nutritional score’. This produces a summary measure of diet based on known consumption of NMES, dietary fibre, Vitamin C, folate, calcium and iron, relative to UK dietary recommendations for children of different ages (up to age ten). This nutritional score was restricted to these nutrients because it was the only information on diets that could be obtained for the qualitative cases. This nutritional score had a normal distribution and scores varied for all children aged 18 months–10 years from 14 to 94 per cent (55 per cent on average). The calculation method for this nutritional score is reported elsewhere (Simon, O’Connell and Stephen 2012). Regression analyses were conducted with each of the data sets (ALSPAC, HSE and NDNS) using the measures of children’s diet described above as outcome variables (all continuous). It was considered desirable to include the same independent variables, in order to aid comparability across the data sets. In addition to maternal employment, the following socio-economic variables were identified in the literature as being potentially key confounding and mediating factors to explain relationships between maternal employment and children’s diet and/or the relationship between parental employment and children’s weight (Hawkins, Cole and Law 2008; Northstone and Emmett 2005): child gender, maternal ethnic group, whether the target child has siblings, maternal age, maternal education (not available in NDNS), maternal social class, family weekly income and whether partner is present (defined as living in the same house). Dummy variables were computed for these socio-economic variables for use in the regression analyses. In the analyses reported in this chapter, all the socio-economic variables were entered into the regression model simultaneously, so that the impact of maternal employment on children’s diets was assessed after controlling for these other socio-economic variables. All data were analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).

ALSPAC Four factors were provided at age three: these were labelled by ALSPAC as ‘Junk’, ‘Health Conscious’, ‘Traditional’ and ‘Snacks’. However, there were three factors at ages four and seven, labelled as ‘Processed’, ‘Health Conscious’

IS PARENTAL EMPLOYMENT LINKED TO CHILDREN’S DIETS?

21

and ‘Traditional’. ‘Junk’ at age three is similar in terms of food composition to ‘Processed’ at ages four and seven. According to the ALSPAC, approximately 50 per cent of mothers with children aged 18 months–10 years were in employment (when the child was aged three, four and seven). We found that, after controlling for the other socio-economic factors, maternal employment was positively related to ‘Junk’ (0.090; first line Table 2.1) and negatively related to ‘Healthy’ (0.038; first line Table 2.1) at age three. This means that children of mothers who were employed consumed more processed foods and fewer healthier foods. At ages four and seven, maternal employment was positively related to ‘Processed’ (0.053 and 0.060 respectively; first line Table 2.1) and also negatively related to ‘Health Conscious’. This means that children of employed mothers consumed more processed foods and fewer ‘health conscious’ foods at these ages. Looking across the three time points of dietary data in the ALSPAC, four socio-economic variables were also significantly related to the dietary factors (Table 2.1): child gender (boys consumed more ‘Health Conscious’ foods at age three, more ‘Traditional’ foods at ages three, four and seven and more ‘Processed’ foods at age seven), maternal age (children with younger aged mothers consumed more ‘Junk’/‘Processed’ foods at age three, four and seven), having siblings (children with siblings consumed more ‘Junk’/‘Processed’ foods at ages three, four and seven and less ‘Health Conscious’ foods at ages three and four) and maternal education (children with mothers whose highest level of qualifications were ‘O level’ or ‘CSE’ consumed more ‘Junk’/‘Processed’ and ‘Traditional’ foods and less ‘Health conscious’ foods, at ages three, four and seven relative to children whose mothers had degree level or higher qualifications).

HSE Food data in the ‘Eating Habits’ section of the HSE were used in a factor analysis, using the same procedures as ALSPAC. There were just five variables in this section, which is quite low for a factor analysis. However, the analysis suggested two factors, which combined, accounted for 51.9 per cent of the variance in the original five variables. We labelled the first factor ‘Sweets and snacks’: it comprised relatively low consumption of sweets, snacks and fizzy drinks. The second factor was labelled ‘Cakes and cereals’, and represented low consumption of cakes and cereals, independent of the consumption of sweets and snacks. Some variables from the ‘Fruit and vegetables’ section were excluded from the factor analysis because their distributions were very skewed (most people had zero portions), leaving nine individual variables (pulses, salad, vegetables,

0.035*

Has siblings

0.116*

0.120*

21–25 years

20 or under

0.126*

0.255*

0.193*

0.254*

A level

O level

Vocational

CSE

Maternal qualifications

0.057*

26–30 years

Maternal age (years)

0.033*

 0.010

0.090*

Mother’s ethnicity: White

Child gender: Boy

Mother employed

Junk

 0.224*

0.065*

0.068*

0.132*

 0.261*

 0.184*

0.091*

0.029

 0.006

 0.119*

0.048*

0.012

 0.026

 0.031

 0.052*

 0.014

Trad’al

 0.036

 0.064*

 0.046*

0.080*

0.041*

 0.038*

Health

3 years: n = 6,667

 0.087*

 0.035

 0.014

0.026

 0.013

0.001

0.022

0.097*

 0.070*

0.017

0.001

Snacks

0.167*

0.142*

0.191*

0.100*

0.045*

0.053*

0.051*

0.052*

 0.028

0.029

0.053*

Proc’ed

0.004

0.036

0.072*

0.081*

0.032

0.035

0.031

 0.013

 0.019

 0.051*

 0.033

Trad’al

Health

 0.231*

 0.197*

 0.267*

 0.120*

 0.020

 0.050*

 0.067*

 0.039*

0.063*

 0.023

 0.047*

4 years: n = 5,222

0.191*

0.115*

0.203*

0.119*

0.072*

0.067*

0.044*

0.064*

 0.017

0.045*

0.060*

Proc’ed

0.022

0.057*

0.054

0.069*

0.042*

0.059*

0.024

0.030

 0.002

 0.046*

 0.009

Trad’al

 0.185*

 0.162*

 0.210*

 0.095*

 0.018

 0.048*

 0.052*

 0.007

0.077*

 0.016

 0.041*

Health

7 years: n = 5,343

Table 2.1  Regression coefficients showing associations between dietary components (provided in the ALSPAC through PCA of food frequency questionnaires), maternal employment and other socio-economic characteristics (for children aged 18 months–10 years)

22

Food, Families and Work

0.020

0.027

0.038*

IV

V

0.100*

100

0.004

 0.005

 0.142*

 0.034  0.006

 0.114*

 0.070*

 0.023

 0.045*

 0.046

 0.037

 0.016

 0.027

 0.044

 0.048

 0.018

0.014

 0.018

 0.013

 0.028

 0.012

 0.017

 0.027

0.017

0.026

0.010

0.009

0.007

 0.001

0.031

 0.011

 0.076*

0.024

0.000

 0.045

0.004

0.011

0.017

0.015

 0.004

0.024

0.040

 0.013

0.026

 0.008

 0.013

 0.042

 0.028

 0.046

 0.083

0.020

 0.037

0.012

0.019

0.055*

0.025

0.015

0.027

0.000

0.050

 0.020

 0.040

 0.006

 0.024

 0.007

 0.008

0.008

0.001

0.011

0.024

0.029

0.006

 0.006

0.039

0.004

0.000

 0.038

 0.030

 0.040

 0.127*

 0.026

Reference categories: Maternal employment = not working; Siblings = none; Child gender = girl; Maternal ethnic group = non-white; Maternal age = 31 years and over; Qualifications = degree level; Social Class = I; Family income = £500+ per week; Partner present = no.

Trad’al = Traditional foods; *P = 0.001.

 0.013

0.014

0.102*

100–199

Partner present

0.027

0.058*

200–299

 0.036

0.023

 0.030

 0.022

 0.013

 0.009

 0.054

0.021

300–499

Family weekly income (£)

0.004

IIIM

 0.021

IIINM

II

Maternal social class

IS PARENTAL EMPLOYMENT LINKED TO CHILDREN’S DIETS? 23

24

Food, Families and Work

vegetables in composites, fruit juice, sized fruit, dried fruit, frozen or canned fruit and fruit in composites) for the factor analysis. A three factor solution, accounting for 40.4 per cent of the variance, was used in the analyses reported here. Higher scores mean more portions and more portions indicate a healthier diet. The first factor, with high loadings on portions of sized fruit (i.e. whole fruits), vegetables and salad, was labelled ‘fresh fruit and vegetables’; the second, with only one loading above 0.3, for vegetables in composites (e.g. vegetable chilli), and moderate loadings for salad, dried fruit and fruit in composites, was labelled ‘processed fruit and vegetables’; and the third, with only one loading above 0.3, for vegetables and some moderate loadings for fruit in composites and a negative one for sized fruit, was labelled ‘fresh vegetables with processed fruit but not fresh fruit’ (Table 2.2). According to the HSE, 55 per cent of mothers with children aged 18 months–10 years were in paid employment in 2007–8. Maternal employment was not significantly related to any of these factors (Table 2.2). Further regression analyses were conducted with the HSE data, using two single variables: direct measures of the portions of fruit and vegetables consumed and the portions of ‘sized’ fruit consumed. This analysis also found no relationship with these direct measures of diet and maternal employment for children aged five to ten years (Table 2.2). However, some of the socioeconomic variables entered into these models were significantly related to the factor analysis derived measures. For example, having siblings was negatively related to the ‘Cakes and cereals’ factor for children aged two to ten (less consumption if children had siblings) but positively related to the ‘Processed fruit & vegetables’ factor at age five to ten (more consumption if they had siblings) – interestingly the reverse pattern to that found in the ALSPAC. Also, maternal education was negatively related to ‘Sweets and snacks’ (children with mothers having an ‘A’ level or ‘O’ level education, or having ‘no qualifications’ consumed less ‘sweets and snacks’ than children with mothers educated to degree level or higher) – again, seemingly the reverse pattern to that found in the ALSPAC where higher consumption of ‘Processed foods’ was among lower qualified mothers.

NDNS According to the NDNS, 65 per cent of mothers with children aged 18 months– 10 years were in paid employment in 2009–10. Maternal employment was not related to children’s consumption of portions of fruit and vegetables (0.056, p = 0.377; Table 2.3). Similarly, the ‘nutritional score’ was not statistically related to maternal employment (0.005, p = 0.933; Table 2.3). Children of mothers who were not employed had a very similar average nutritional score

0.067

Mother’s ethnicity: White

0.013

0.013

21–25

20 or under

 0.135*

 0.064

 0.100*

O level

CSE

None

 0.108*

A level

Maternal education

0.013

26–30

Maternal age (years)

 0.047

0.009

Child gender

Has siblings

0.011

Mother employed

Sweets & snacks

0.028

0.012

0.017

0.024

 0.049

 0.050

 0.085

 0.067

 0.005

 0.016

 0.035

 0.027

 0.032

 0.010

0.059

 0.007

 0.025

Fresh fruit & vegetables

 0.016

 0.042

 0.057

 0.015

0.037

 0.037

 0.046

0.025

0.150*

 0.025

0.015

Processed fruit & vegetables

 0.049

0.021

 0.082

 0.026

 0.019

 0.035

 0.006

 0.051

0.017

0.015

0.025

Fresh fruit & processed vegetables

5–10 years: n = 1,458

Factor analysis

 0.018

 0.107*

0.055

 0.026

 0.007

Cakes & cereals

2–10 years: n = 2,224

 0.034

 0.061

 0.080

 0.066

0.007

 0.030

 0.045

 0.013

0.062

 0.033

 0.029

Portions of fruit & veg per day

(continued )

 0.009

 0.045

0.007

 0.022

0.009

0.000

 0.025

0.001

0.040

 0.008

 0.044

Portions of sized fruit per day

5–10 years: n = 1,458

Regression analysis

Table 2.2  Regression coefficients showing associations between dietary components (identified by PCA of HSE 2007/8 diet data)/other direct measures of food consumption, maternal employment and other socio-economic characteristics (for children aged 18 months–10 years)

IS PARENTAL EMPLOYMENT LINKED TO CHILDREN’S DIETS? 25

 0.065

V

0.066

 0.021

 0.031

 0.021

 0.024

Q2

Q1

Partner present

 0.013

 0.105

 0.107

 0.117

 0.070

 0.059

 0.057

 0.006

 0.113

 0.029

Fresh fruit & vegetables

0.014

 0.122

 0.084

 0.094

 0.070

 0.012

0.011

0.000

0.031

0.018

Processed fruit & vegetables

 0.022

0.006

 0.020

 0.047

 0.020

 0.048

 0.041

 0.056

 0.071

 0.013

Fresh fruit & processed vegetables

5–10 years: n = 1,458

Factor analysis

 0.026

 0.116

 0.114

 0.128*

 0.091

 0.071

 0.032

 0.006

 0.087

0.015

Portions of fruit & veg per day

 0.010

 0.089

 0.056

 0.068

 0.056

 0.010

 0.025

0.026

0.054

0.007

Portions of sized fruit per day

5–10 years: n = 1,458

Regression analysis

Reference categories: Maternal employment = not working; Siblings = none; Child gender = girl; Maternal ethnic group = non-white; Maternal age = 31 years and over; Qualifications = degree level; Social class = I; Family income = Q5; Partner present = no.

*P = 0.001

0.035

 0.013

Q3

0.045

0.028

0.035

 0.032

 0.014

 0.061

 0.038

 0.061

Cakes & cereals

Q4

Family weekly income (£)

 0.092

 0.133

IIIM

 0.148

IIINM

IV

 0.105

II

Maternal social class

Sweets & snacks

2–10 years: n = 2,224

Table 2.2  (Continued)

26

Food, Families and Work

IS PARENTAL EMPLOYMENT LINKED TO CHILDREN’S DIETS?

27

Table 2.3  Regression coefficients showing associations between direct measure of fruit and vegetable consumption (NDNS)/a nutritional score (calculated from nutrition data in the NDNS 2009–10), maternal employment and other socio-economic characteristics (for children aged 18 months–10 years) Direct measure of portions of fruit and vegetables consumed (n = 359) Mother employed

Nutritional score (n = 359)

0.056

 0.005

Child gender

 0.069

0.106

Mother’s ethnic group

 0.032

 0.032

0.026

 0.024

26–30

0.046

0.032

21–25

 0.107

 0.075

20 or under

 0.154

 0.059

Sibling Maternal age:

Maternal social class: II

0.121

0.023

IIINM

0.012

 0.069

IIIM

 0.086

 0.052

IV

 0.129

 0.265*

V

 0.138

 0.123

300–499

 0.057

0.057

200–299

 0.068

0.012

100–199

 0.096

0.115

100

0.033

0.076

Partner not present

0.022

 0.020

Family weekly income (£)

*P = 0.001 Reference categories: Maternal employment = not working; Siblings = none; Child gender = girl; Maternal ethnic group = non-white; Maternal age = 31 years and over; Social Class = I; Family income = £500+ per week; Partner present = no.

(mean = 54.24; std. deviation = 17.41) to children of mothers who were in employment (mean = 55.84; std. deviation = 15.86). Unlike the ALSPAC and HSE, none of the socio-economic variables were related to the NDNS diet outcome measures, with the exception of maternal social class IV, which was negatively related to the ‘nutritional score’ (Table 2.3).

28

Food, Families and Work

Discussion In the context of existing research, carried out using the MCS and also supported by some US research (e.g. Crepinsek and Burstein 2004; McIntosh et al. 2008), suggesting an association between parental (maternal) employment and household income with children’s (poor) diet (Hawkins, Cole and Law 2009), it was important to investigate whether this association was borne out elsewhere. As discussed, we were aware that no one data set contained all the information we needed, and therefore we conducted secondary analysis of three data sets, the ALSPAC, HSE and NDNS. With the exception of the ALSPAC, we found no relationship between maternal employment and the foods children consume after controlling for the other socio-economic variables included in our models. However, we did find significant associations with some of the other socio-economic variables. In particular, level of maternal education seemed to be consistently related to children’s diets – both across data sets (ALSPAC and HSE) and across time within the ALSPAC. In the NDNS, only maternal socialclass was significantly related, which could have acted as a proxy for maternal education (given that maternal education information was not supplied in the NDNS). One of the reasons we did not find a relationship with maternal employment in the HSE and NDNS could be that they represent a more updated (and national) picture of children’s diets than that provided by the ALSPAC data (which relates to children of the 1990s and is confined to the Bristol area). It is possible that government policies to increase children’s consumption of fruit and vegetables (such as the School Fruit and Vegetable Scheme) have had an impact; indeed analysis of the new rolling NDNS survey finds that the main changes to UK diets over the last two years have been increases in children’s fruit and vegetable consumption (Whitton et al. 2011). The timing of the surveys does not explain the link between children’s diet and maternal employment in recent analysis of the MCS (Hawkins, Cole and Law 2009) – although this was confined to families where mothers worked full-time. However, in the NDNS it was not possible to analyse maternal hours of work as this information was not collected; had hours of work been included we might have found a similar relationship to that reported in the MCS. The absence of working hours was unfortunate since the NDNS provided very detailed data on children’s nutrition based on food diaries, unlike the MCS, which only collected mothers’ reports of children’s snacking between meals at home (Hawkins, Cole and Law 2009). Another methodological issue encountered was that when we replicated the ALSPAC factor analysis with the HSE, we found that the derived factors

IS PARENTAL EMPLOYMENT LINKED TO CHILDREN’S DIETS?

29

were not a ‘like for like’ match. ‘Sweets and snacks’ was our proxy for ‘Processed’ foods in the ALSPAC. However, it could be that ‘Sweets and snacks’ are measuring something completely different to ‘Processed’ foods in the ALSPAC. Additionally, ‘Processed’ foods, as defined in the ALSPAC, are considered an indicator of ‘worse diet’. However, this data-driven assessment rests on the frequency of their consumption, which may not be a sound basis for assessing diet quality. A measure of diet quality should also arguably include the nutritional value of different foods because what might be considered healthy in one context may not be considered healthy in another context (Emmett 2009). For example, a ‘home made’ cake may be considered morally ‘good’ but this same food could also be considered nutritionally ‘bad’ if it contained more fat than nationally recommended levels. Therefore it could be that the ‘nutritional score’ we developed using the NDNS, which is based on how children’s consumption of nutrients is related to recommended nutritional levels, provides a more stringent and robust measure of children’s diets. If this is the case, the finding of no relationship between maternal employment and children’s diets could be important. We suggest that some of the other socio-economic variables included in our models, especially level of maternal education, are stronger indicators of what children consume than maternal employment. In particular, previous research shows that maternal education is an important mediating factor in explaining variations in children’s diets (as evidenced by research undertaken by Anderson, Butcher and Levine 2003; Hawkins, Cole and Law 2008, 2009). Also, from this research, social class and household income have been found to be related to children’s fruit and vegetable consumption and overall diet quality (as measured by our nutritional score). The NDNS diet data had a further advantage in that, apart from their detail, they included foods eaten outside of the home as well as within it. Given recent public policy initiatives to improve the quality of food in UK school and childcare settings, it is likely that the children of working mothers who eat in different settings are eating a range of nutritious foods which supplement or complement the diet they eat at home. Indeed analysis of NDNS data to examine children’s fruit and vegetable consumption in different social contexts (Mak et al. 2012) confirms this to be the case. This is also demonstrated in our qualitative findings which suggest that school and childcare settings both provide and increase children’s preferences for a range of what are considered to be nutritious foods (Chapter 6). Survey evidence cannot easily address the more detailed pathways and processes which lie behind associations. Moreover, the point of using different methods to address diet and health is to frame questions in different ways and examine different dimensions of the same phenomena.

30

Food, Families and Work

Conclusion There are limitations to the kinds of quantitative research described above. While a number of ‘pathways’ or ‘mechanisms’ are mooted, such research does not seek to and cannot explain any association or lack of association between variables. Secondary analysis is also limited to the data sets that are available. Food in childcare was only considered in one of the studies discussed. In part this is because there is a lack of data. It is time consuming and costly to collect information about what children eat outside of their homes (Stephen 2007) and challenging to link data sets together. However, the result of failing to acknowledge children’s food intake outside of the home is that such research may inadvertently contribute to ‘mother blame’ (Garey and Arendell 2001). This omission lends weight to the idea that it is ‘factors in the family environment’ (Bauer et al. 2012) that matter most and situates families, and mothers in particular, as responsible for children’s health and diets (Zivkovic et al. 2010). Since childhood obesity in the UK has increased over the same time period as mothers’ employment there seems to be a compelling prima facie case that the two phenomena are related (Glick 2002), especially when coupled with the ‘common sense’ econometric models employed in many of the studies. But coincidence is not correlation, let alone causation. While the analyses attempt to factor out confounding factors, one cannot help but wonder whether this ‘on the surface’ relationship inflates the importance in interpretation of often small associations found (and which in any case might be because of endogenous or unknown confounding factors which have not been controlled for) (cf. Wolf 2011). The remaining chapters draw mainly on qualitative evidence – in particular on the in-depth interviews with parents and children – in order to explore inductively the contextual meanings of food use in working families, the embodiment of food practices and their situatedness in different social contexts and practices. Together with the quantitative findings these approaches provide a fuller picture (Brannen 2004; Mason 2006).

3 Who does the foodwork in working families?

F

amily foodwork, or ‘domestic food provisioning’ (DeVault 1991), includes all the work involved in feeding the family. This comprises procuring, preparing and serving food, cleaning up and ‘moving along’ (reusing and recycling) (Gregson, Metcalfe and Crewe 2007). Importantly, foodwork also involves the ‘invisible work’ (Daniels 1987) of thinking about family food and what everyone will eat. The concept of foodwork presupposes the varied sorts of often tacit and practical knowledge and ‘food skills’ possessed by those who do foodwork: not only knowing how to chop an onion or cook spaghetti bolognaise, for example, but also awareness of the food preferences of family members, ability to cook while looking after children and to procure nutritious foods on a limited budget (Short 2006). Budgeting and procuring food are increasingly important aspects of foodwork in the context of global rising food prices and stagnant incomes (Defra 2014; Griffith, O’Connell and Smith 2013). This chapter examines the domestic division of foodwork – including planning meals, procuring and preparing food, clearing up and taking responsibility for children’s health and diets – in dual earner families with younger children. Following a brief overview of the literature, the chapter provides the national picture in the UK, describing the findings from secondary analysis of two large-scale data sets (the NDNS and the Understanding Society study). It then draws on the qualitative household data to examine which and how parents share foodwork, the ways in which they account for this and how this changes over time. The contributions of children are briefly examined. The last section describes an important aspect of foodwork in the current context – managing the food budget.

32

Food, Families and Work

Background The expectation that women, including mothers, engage in gainful employment has not yet been matched by a corresponding reconceptualization of women’s responsibility for unpaid domestic labour (Hochschild 1989). Although studies show that men on average have increased the time they spend on domestic work over the years, the increase has been small and women still undertake the major share. Cross-national trends in the time spent in paid and unpaid work for the last forty years ‘reveal a slow and incomplete convergence of women’s and men’s work patterns’ (Kan, Sullivan and Gershuny 2011: 234), a process Arlie Hochschild calls the ‘stalled revolution’ and which Gershuny, Godwin and Jones (1994) refer to as a ‘lagged adaptation’. The evidence is that where changes have occurred in the gender division of domestic labour, the areas that remain least changed are those coded as ‘feminine’, such as childcare and foodwork (Kan 2008). While cooking has traditionally been understood as ‘women’s work’ (Mennell, Murcott and Van Otterloo 1992: 95; Murcott 1983b), it has also been assumed that ‘the economic and structural changes associated with women’s increasing participation in the paid labour market would be reflected in an increase in men’s participation in domestic labour and parenting work’ (Curtis, James and Ellis 2009b: 95). Brannen and Nilsen (2006) describe a shift from ‘fatherhood to fathering’ in which the former refers to a main breadwinner exempted from childcare by paid work and the latter to an involved and hands-on parent. The stereotypical ‘New Man’ (Morgan 1992) is actively involved in fathering and participates in family activities such as cooking and cleaning, with the popular perception being that men are ‘spending more time in the kitchen’ (The Telegraph 2009), ‘doing the cooking’ (The Daily Express 2011). However, the evidence is that although expectations are changing, in practice men still undertake relatively little childcare and domestic work (Segal 2007). Recent analysis of the Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS)1 and other surveys suggests that gender segregation between the different categories of domestic work persist over time (e.g. Bittman and Wajcman 2000; Kan and Gershuny 2010; Sullivan 1997): While men are slowly increasing their contributions in all categories of domestic work, they still spend comparatively little time overall on routine housework, much less on child care, and concentrate their domestic work time mainly on the less routine types of chores such as DIY and shopping. Despite the overall evidence for slow gender convergence over time, women still undertake the bulk of each type of domestic work, focusing

WHO DOES THE FOODWORK IN WORKING FAMILIES?

33

particularly on routine housework (with cleaning, cooking and laundry exhibiting the highest level of female specialization). (Kan, Sullivan and Gershuny 2011: 238) Warde et al.’s (2007) analysis of cooking and eating in the MTUS confirm this analysis: women in the participating countries (France, UK, US, Norway and the Netherlands) at each of their survey points cooked much more and ate out less than men. The authors suggest that gender divisions in the area of food preparation and consumption are ‘ubiquitous and persistent’, a fact ‘which is not amenable to interpretation as a matter of elective lifestyle’ (2007: 379; and see also Warde and Hetherington 1994). Barriers to the ‘democratization’ of domestic work include gender ideologies and institutionalized structures of paid work and care (Kan, Sullivan and Gershuny 2011). Some research suggests an association between men’s participation in domestic activities (and foodwork in particular) and education and household income (Meah 2013). Lewis suggests that fathers do more housework and routine childcare when they are employed fewer hours and mothers more hours (2009: 54); when they are more highly educated; when mothers earn more; and when mothers are employed full-time and have been employed for longer (Coltrane 2007). Recent qualitative research examining men’s contributions to foodwork suggests that there are changes in the meaning of cooking for men (Szabo 2012, 2013; Meah 2013; Meah and Jackson 2012) and that most fathers contribute in some way to feeding the family, whether as assistant ‘sous chefs’ or by sharing the cooking (Metcalfe et al. 2009). However this research has not considered in detail how the division of foodwork is negotiated in dual career families. Further, most discussions over the ‘household’ division of labour focus on couples (Punch 2001) with the result that children’s participation in domestic work is often overlooked (for important UK exceptions see Morrow 2006; Brannen, Hepinstall and Bhopal 2000). This chapter briefly includes mothers’ and children’s accounts of children’s contribution to foodwork. A further omission from much of the literature concerns the outsourcing of domestic labour. Feeding the family may be accomplished in working families through the employment of paid domestic labour (such as au pairs) and through the use of pre-prepared, ‘fast’ and ‘convenience’ foods in which some or much of the foodwork is shifted outside the home, to takeaway shops, factories and food-processing plants (Glucksmann and Nolan 2007). The gender implications of the increasing outsourcing of domestic labour include the empirical question of whether such paid foodwork inside and outside the home is performed by men or by women. There is, moreover, the more ideological issue of whether the practice is emancipatory in freeing up mothers’ time, (e.g. Carrigan, Szmigin and Leek 2006) or essentially

34

Food, Families and Work

conservative, reproducing the assumption that women can combine paid work and mothering without modifying the demands of either (Gregson and Lowe 1994; Thompson 1996). Answering such questions is hampered by a lack of conceptual clarity regarding what constitutes ‘convenience’ consumption (Warde 1999) and disagreements about more abstract issues such as whether the market responds to or creates demands (Thompson 1996). In this chapter we take an empirical approach while discussing the ways in which parents (mostly mothers) defined ‘convenience’ foods – we consider the use of such foods as one ‘strategy’ among others by which they negotiated foodwork in the context of paid employment.

Mothers’ employment hours and how much men do: The macro-level picture To examine the gender division of domestic foodwork in dual earner families with younger children at the national level (England), we analysed two largescale data sets. The first is the NDNS that surveys 1,000 individuals per year. It contains very detailed diet data but less about food practices and behaviours than about intake. The socio-demographic data collected is limited. The NDNS Year 1 data included information about who had been identified as the Main Food Provider (MFP; defined as the person in the household ‘with the main responsibility for shopping and preparing food’) for children included in the study. The descriptive analysis showed that in 93 per cent (329) of cases (children aged one and a half to ten years), the mother was identified as the MFP. There were no significant variations in this status by maternal employment, by maternal socio-economic status or by family income. The NDNS did not collect information on the hours of work of mothers and therefore it is not known whether this was an explanatory variable. Analysis was also conducted of the Understanding Society (US) data. The survey contains detailed socio-demographic data and some limited data on food practices and domestic work. Analysis of the survey (10,236 couples with a child 0–14 years) found that men’s contribution to cooking increased with women’s hours of employment and decreased with men’s hours of employment (Table 3.1). For mothers in full-time work (31–48 hours per week), nearly a third (30.1 per cent) said that cooking was shared with a partner, and so did 31.8 per cent of mothers with longer full-time hours (48 plus hours). This compares with a fifth of mothers (19.7 per cent) who worked shorter part-time hours (16 hours per week or less) and 24.1 per cent of mothers who worked longer part-time hours (17–30 hours). Fathers generally reported more

35

WHO DOES THE FOODWORK IN WORKING FAMILIES?

Table 3.1  Understanding Society: Shared cooking by mothers’ hours of work Mothers’ weekly hours of employment

0–16

17–30

31–48

48+

Cooking (% of women who said this was ‘shared’ with partner)

19.7

24.1

30.1

31.8

Cooking (% of men who said this was ‘shared’ with partner)

22.4

30.2

36.8

36.4

‘shared’ cooking than did mothers. As with the mothers, fathers reported more sharing with more hours of employment for the mother. While the Understanding Society data set provides more information than NDNS about how foodwork is shared in families where both parents work, a limitation of these data is that these findings are limited to ‘cooking’. This means that other aspects of feeding the family (such as planning meals, food shopping and washing up) that men may undertake, may be overlooked or rendered ‘invisible’. In the qualitative data set we wanted to understand more about how foodwork – defined more broadly – was shared. As we discuss later, we also wanted to explore who else contributed to feeding the family (for example, children, other family members and paid workers) and how this changed over time, especially in relation to changing patterns of work and other family transitions.

Mothers’ employment hours and what men do: The micro-level picture Research participants in the qualitative study were asked at both waves to describe their last working and non-working day and how typical these were. These questions were followed up with more structured questions, including those relating to various aspects of domestic food provisioning and, at Wave 2, to changes to how foodwork was shared and how they felt about it. In addition, we asked parents about children’s contributions and asked children to fill in a chart about ‘who did the foodwork’. The discussion of the chart included the question of whether they helped, with which tasks and whether they would like to do more or less. Taking into account different aspects of foodwork (for example, shopping and washing up, supervizing breakfast) as well as ‘cooking’, cases were categorized according to how much men were reported to contribute in dual

36

Food, Families and Work

parent households.2 The qualitative data confirmed the survey analysis: men did more when women were employed full-time. The analysis found at both waves that around a third of men shared foodwork with their partners (Wave 1 11/31; Wave 2 12/30) and that two-thirds of men’s foodwork was limited to only cooking on weekends or less frequently and occasional help with other tasks. In households where mothers were employed full-time, fathers’ contribution was greater and they shared the foodwork in about half of the cases at both waves (Wave 1 5/12; Wave 2 4/10). However, while the proportion of men sharing foodwork remained the same at Waves 1 and 2, these were not the same cases; there were changes in men’s contributions to foodwork over time in response to a number of factors, including changes to men’s and women’s patterns and hours of paid work (Table 3.2). Most changes were slight, with fathers said to contribute a little more or a little less to domestic foodwork over the two years. In two cases, changes were more marked, with one mother taking on all the foodwork that the father had done previously (Eva) and, in contrast, one father taking on much more (William). In both these cases, changing work patterns and location seemed to explain the shift. In the former case at Wave 2, the father was working very long hours in the office compared with the hours he was working at Wave

Table 3.2  Men’s changing contribution to foodwork in dual parent households at Waves 1 and 2 (n = 30) Fathers’ contribution to Foodwork

Changes/continuities

Increased (5 cases)

Mother increased hours/change location Mother long-term sick Child older

Decreased (7 cases)

Mostly father increased hours also Mother reduced hours Mother increased concern with healthy food Moved home with father’s time diverted to DIY

No change (18 cases)

Mother’s and father’s work hours/pattern same Mother’s responsibility taken for granted Father deemed ‘incompetent’

Total 30

WHO DOES THE FOODWORK IN WORKING FAMILIES?

37

1 when he was home-based. In the case of the latter, the mother’s working hours had increased from Wave 1. Previously the mother had been a part-time registered childminder while she was now working outside the home.

Fathers and foodwork A third of fathers did a significant amount of foodwork at both waves. In these cases, they shared weekday cooking, shopping or cleaning up with their partners. Two-thirds of fathers did some foodwork but acted largely as assistants, performing tasks when asked, playing supporting roles as backup when women were out, ‘helping’ with shopping, cleaning up or only doing special-occasion cooking. In many cases, fathers’ cooking was limited to high days and holidays (weekend breakfasts or as Nicola’s mother put it, having ‘a bit of a dabble’). James’ father commented at Wave 1, ‘I generally do something quite nice. (Wife) will do the standard sort of meals, do you know what I mean?’ Zoe’s father only cooked when they went to their caravan. Some fathers, such as Yasmin’s, cooked when they needed to, for example, because their partners were not at home (Metcalfe et al. 2009): ‘If I’m like sometimes if I have to help out at the weekends, he will actually make a curry dish … so I just have to do the chapattis so it makes my life a bit easier.’ Or, as Christian’s mother said, ‘If I’m not here he does it perfectly well.’ Christian’s mother also mentioned him cooking Saturday breakfasts – what she called ‘daddy eggs’ (Adler 1981; Curtis, James and Ellis 2009b). Some mothers complained that while fathers were prepared to cook, they could only focus on the one task, whereas they had to cook and also look after the children. In a couple of cases, fathers accompanied their wives on food shopping expeditions (for example, Alisha’s) and a number were said to help with the washing up. We examined how foodwork was said to be shared over time. In over half the households (18/30), there was no change in who did the foodwork between the two waves (Table 3.2). The main pattern was where mothers continued to take responsibility for foodwork. This was explained by mothers ‘being there’ because their employment hours fitted around children’s care and because women’s responsibility for foodwork was taken for granted. For example, at both waves, Hope’s mother did most of the foodwork since she worked at home and combined the work of planning and preparing meals and shopping with her work as a carer for her disabled sister. She seemed to enjoy having ‘control’ of food and eating; she said, ‘He’d be off at work all day and I’d have the day to sort out the dinner anyway.’ Ronan’s mother also mainly worked from home as her son’s carer and had tight control of the limited

38

Food, Families and Work

family food budget. She retained responsibility for planning, shopping and preparing meals at both waves. Katie’s mother worked short part-time hours outside the home, doing the accounts for a family business. At both waves, she did all the planning, cooking, shopping and her role was traditional in that she took the children to school, collected them and only worked during school hours. Katie’s father worked long hours in the City of London and did some cooking at weekends at both waves and occasionally did the food shopping, but was thought to spend too much money, and bought the children unhealthy treats. Aaron’s mother, with two young children, who worked fifteen hours a week at Wave 1 and seventeen and a half at Wave 2, explained, M Um … it’s … it’s still me really, I mean [husband] perhaps will cook, I mean he enjoys cooking more than me but it’s probably because he doesn’t have to do it every day as well. He’ll kind of cook on a Saturday quite regularly, but I still tend to do the majority of the organising and the shopping and the cooking and getting it all in and sorted really, so, yeah. I Yeah, and why is that? Is that just because … M I think it’s just because, I suppose, I don’t work full-time, and that’s the role he thinks I have. No, I don’t mind, I mean I don’t have to work fulltime at the moment so, yeah, I don’t mind. Some mothers, however, grew more dissatisfied over time with their assumed and actual responsibility for foodwork. For example, Mary’s mother did all the foodwork at both waves, something she seemed to increasingly resent. At Wave 1, she explained that although her husband, a farmer, would help serve and clear up on occasion, it was more work to enlist his help. ‘In fairness, … if I ask him he does, but sometimes it’s just easier to get on and do it’. At Wave 2, she still did most of the work of feeding the family, planning and preparing meals. She said she would like her husband to do more in the way of preparing meals, particularly on days that she is at work. While he would cook if specifically asked, for example, to make a chilli or ragu, he did not take the initiative, meaning she retained responsibility for ‘thinking about’ food and planning. ‘He’s here because he has to be, you know he’ll meet her off the school taxi, and until I get here and he’s doing childcare … or if there’s a specific job he can’t finish, his mum will sort of step in. … But that’s it.’ Hayley’s mother also did all the foodwork at both waves, despite working full-time, something she did not enjoy and strongly resented: ‘They leave it all to me.’ Other families remained egalitarian at both waves (Table 3.2). Meghan’s father and mother shared foodwork equally at both waves. As Meghan’s mother explained, he had taken on much of the foodwork because she was busy ferrying their daughters to after-school activities. ‘He never used to, when they was younger, and then he got quite into cooking over the last few

WHO DOES THE FOODWORK IN WORKING FAMILIES?

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years, and then he’s had to really cos, if I’m not back till 7 it’s too late to start cooking, so he’s started doing it and he quite enjoys it so he’s taken over a lot now which is good.’ Thomas’ mother (who worked full-time) and father also shared foodwork equally. Whoever was caring for the children (they did this on different evenings) cooked for them. Harvey’s parents also shared foodwork equally at both waves, although his mother had more time at Wave 2 as she had reduced her hours from full- to part-time, which she said meant she did more cooking ‘from scratch’. She explained that she continued to do the food shopping because it was something she enjoyed. In one family, the father continued to do most of the foodwork. At Wave 1, this was explained by the father’s work pattern; his work was home-based and fitted around his daughter’s schooling while her mother worked long hours as a secondary school teacher. At Wave 2, although his hours had changed and Amelia’s mother now collected their daughter from school, Amelia’s father retained responsibility for food shopping and cooking. This was not explained as such; rather it was taken as a given. Gemma’s father also did most of the cooking at both waves, while other aspects of foodwork (shopping, washing up) were shared or done by the mother. At Wave 1, it was explained that the father did the cooking because of their shift patterns; with him at home during the day and the mother not returning in time to cook the evening meal. In addition, Gemma’s mother explained that she did not enjoy cooking. At Wave 2, despite changes in their shift patterns, the father continued to do much of the cooking. M It works well for us, because you know [husband] enjoys cooking, I don’t. We do the shopping together. I Yeah. M You know and I do the washing up, so it just works … everything that we do is like a partnership and we seem to both like and dislike the opposite things, so it works out quite well, you know, you sort of share it a lot better. At Wave 2, with the father no longer on permanent night shift, Gemma’s mother had no choice but to prepare evening meals occasionally. However, she often resorted to fast food. Five of the fathers increased the amount of cooking they did from Wave 1 to Wave 2 (Table 3.2). In one case, this was because the mother had a new job (William) and in another, because the mother was seriously ill (Luke). In some cases there were small changes, as in the case of Sean’s father who had been taught to cook by his wife and, at Wave 2, was doing some of the cooking in addition to the shopping. Given he did all the shopping at both waves (they had no car so he carried it home), the foodwork was now fairly evenly shared overall,

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yet his wife did most of the cooking. Layla’s father did little or no foodwork at Wave 1 but did half the food shopping at Wave 2 because, it was explained, Mia was older and he did not mind taking her with him as an outing. In seven households, the amount of foodwork fathers did decreased between the two waves; in two cases, this was to do with moving house (Table 3.2). Nicola’s mother preferred that her husband devoted his spare time to DIY on their new house. ‘The amount of jobs that need to be done mean that I’d rather he did a job than made my tea. Cos he can do the job and you know he can plaster a wall, whereas I can’t … or he can decorate whereas I can’t.’ On the other hand, she seemed to harbour slight resentment because she had to do all the thinking about what to eat; she tried to enlist her husband and Sophie in planning meals – ‘So I do try and nag them on a Sunday to think of things that they want to eat for the rest of the week, otherwise it’s just mummy thinking of things … isn’t it?’ In Malkeet’s case, the house move meant they now had a tiny kitchen and, as Malkeet said, his father made a mess when he cooked and so was discouraged from doing it. In three cases, fathers had been promoted or changed jobs and were working longer hours, so that mothers had to take on more of the foodwork. As James’ mother said, ‘His promotion came with more work for me.’ In Eva’s case, her father had done all of the cooking and most of the online food shopping at Wave 1 but at Wave 2 following the birth of a baby brother, the father’s new job involved long hours out of the house and the family had lost their au pair. Eva’s mother now undertook most of the foodwork. Instead of paid domestic help, she had increased the use of convenience and preprepared foods (see below), but felt ‘guilty’ about what she saw as failing in her maternal duty. In the case of Charlie, both the father and the mother did less cooking because the nanny was doing more. One case of a father who decreased the amount of foodwork was explained by the mother as arising out of her concern to provide the family with a healthy diet (she and her husband were both trying to lose weight while her son, Logan, was seen as needing to gain weight). Since the father did not serve healthy food, the mother had taken over more of the shopping and cooking at Wave 2, which he had shared equally at Wave 1.

Who and what else helps with foodwork? Children also contribute to foodwork. As Punch (2001) argues, an intergenera­ tional perspective is required that acknowledges children’s participation in domestic work. Previous research, including by Morrow (1996), Brannen (1995) and Brannen, Hepinstall and Bhopal (2000), has examined children’s

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contribution to care work in families. Brannen (1995) found that children participated in foodwork activities including ‘self care’ tasks such as making something to eat for themselves and ‘family care’ tasks such as clearing away dishes and loading the dishwasher. Most children accepted that their parents expected them to contribute but suggested that their contribution ought to be, and was, modest. Children in our qualitative study also contributed to household foodwork, mainly completing ‘self care’ tasks such as making snacks and helping themselves to breakfast, but also some ‘family care’ tasks such as serving and clearing up and helping with some cooking – often ‘treats’ or special foods such as cakes and biscuits. Only in a small minority of households did children do a substantial amount of routine domestic work. However, parents commonly said that they encouraged children to help more as they got older. As children approached adolescence, however, they were said to help at home less because other activities (school work, extra-curricular clubs, leisure) had a more legitimate claim on their time. Perceived risks, for example, hot ovens and sharp knives, the need for supervision and the mess they were said to create were also given as reasons by parents for their children not helping more than they did. Some mothers and fathers expressed the view that they ‘should’ ask children to help more, suggesting a tension between the desire to get the work done efficiently and a concern to raise their children to be competent in food provisioning and to be responsible members of the family. It is noteworthy that our sample was skewed towards higher-income families (see Chapter 1 Table 1.1). In contrast, qualitative UK (Scotland) research found that teenagers in working-class households contributed significantly to feeding themselves and their families (Wills et al. 2008). In some working families, some foodwork was outsourced to paid domestic help (nannies and au pairs) or involved the use of convenience and pre-prepared foods. In some households, resident grandmothers did some of the cooking. One family had taken on a nanny by Wave 2 because one of the children had started primary school whereas previously both children had attended a day nursery. The nanny cooked for the children who were said to eat ‘better’ when the nanny cooked their food than when their mother did. Another family had lost their au pair by Wave 2; the arrival of a new baby meant the mother had reduced her hours of employment. The au pair had previously helped with the preparation of meals, for example, by preparing fresh vegetables, so now the mother was more reliant on processed foods. Defining ‘processed’ and ‘convenience’ foods is difficult (Warde 1999). Further, given the moralized nature of home-cooked food versus industrial cooking (Moisio, Arnould and Price 2004), many parents were reluctant to say that they used what they called ‘ready meals’. However, unsurprisingly, given the marketized food environment, all parents reported using some

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pre-prepared foods, particularly what they termed ‘short cuts’ such as jars of sauces, and many also reported using fast foods such as takeaways, especially on Fridays, as a special way of marking the end of the working week. In the context of their busy working lives, mothers described a number of approaches to saving, buying and ‘shifting’ time (Warde 1999), that is, re-sequencing food preparation, for example, by making meals in bulk and freezing them. Resources (for example, money, kitchen appliances, energy levels) influenced the strategies they used. ●●

Saving time involved the use of ‘quick and easy’ foods that everyone liked, planning meals in advance and freezer food that ‘you can just stick in the oven’.

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Shifting time involved bulk cooking and freezing meals/components and the use of slow cookers for stews or ‘hotpots’ prepared the previous evening.

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Buying time involved children eating meals in school and childcare (resulting in no perceived need for a cooked meal in the evening), the employment of paid help (nanny and au pair) and the use of ‘fast’ (takeaway) food, especially on Fridays.

Arguably, since these approaches avoided rather than confronted the need for a more equitable gender division of labour, these strategies often served to reproduce foodwork as women’s work, as will be discussed later in the chapter.

Accounting for the division of foodwork Asked to account for the gender division of foodwork (whether they were happy with it) most mothers took it as given and as part of the implicit bargain between them and their partners. As outlined above, this was because in the great majority of cases the mothers worked shorter hours or arrived home first, meaning that they did most of the cooking, in particular for children. As mentioned above, in addition to working hours, a common theme in accounting for the gender division of foodwork was that men maintained a general lack of competence in cooking and in the kitchen, being unable to prepare decent meals or to clean up afterwards (cf. Curtis, James and Ellis 2009b). Aaron’s mother said that when her husband cooked she always had to clear up after him. Zoe’s mother was asked if she was happy that her husband only cooked when they had barbecues at the caravan, to which she said, ‘I’m fine. It’s what I’ve always done. So … I prefer having a tidy kitchen rather than

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somebody being let loose and making a mess. …’ And Sean’s mother said she did not like him to make curries because ‘he makes such a mess when he does it. He does it his way.’ Some women suggested that even when men helped they needed to be instructed in what was to be done. This required effort and did not relieve them of the burden of having to do the invisible work of ‘thinking’ about food and eating (DeVault 1991). Zoe’s mother said, for example, that if she enlisted her husband’s help, ‘he’d still come to me and ask me how to do it’. Christopher’s mother said that if her husband did the shopping she had to tell him exactly what to buy, for example, the type of apples that the children liked – ‘you know it takes me half an hour to write the list’. Women also mentioned difficulties resulting from teaching their husbands to cook, referring to how this role changes the domestic balance of power. Luke’s mother said, ‘It’s alright if I help him because I know that he is in charge. So I sort of do what he asks me to do. But the other way round, it’s not quite so easy. So I’d rather do it on my own than have help from him.’ Alisha’s mother suggested that asking others to help risked a hostile reaction. She did not want to be considered a nagger, ‘I do it – that’s what my friend says, because you do it, that’s why they don’t learn it. The trouble is then people complain if you nag, don’t they?’ By contrast, some fathers were more disposed to take on the role of assistant (the ‘sous chef’ in Metcalfe et al.’s 2009 typology), as in the case of Martha’s father who did the peeling and chopping of vegetables on weekends. A further reason related to women’s desire to maintain control over the children’s and family diets in line with taking ‘proper’ maternal responsibility for children’s health (Maher, Fraser and Wright 2010). In a few cases, women mentioned men’s penchant for less healthy meals. Christian’s mother said, ‘That’s one of the reasons why I cook. He would do bangers and mash or Knorr noodles – that’s all he used to eat before I came along.’ Hope’s mother also said that ‘basically since I’ve known him his idea of cooking would be in a frying pan’. She didn’t like the children eating fried food and moreover believed it would be wasted – ‘I know that if he was to cook they probably wouldn’t eat half of what he’d give to them or it wouldn’t be edible. … So then I’m quite happy to do the cooking.’ Enlisting the ‘help’ of children in routine cooking was also seen by some mothers and fathers to be a time-consuming activity; parents had other priorities such as getting children fed (Murphy, Parker and Phipps 1998) and making sure their homework was done (Blum-Kulka 1997). Some mothers thought that they ‘should’ ask children to help more, suggesting a tension between the desire to complete the task and a concern to raise their children to be competent and to contribute. However, given this was seen to involve more time and effort than doing it themselves, ‘time-squeezed’ employed

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mothers understandably often prioritized feeding the family. This might explain why children – and fathers – were more often involved in special-occasion cooking or making treats (cf. Curtis, James and Ellis 2009b). Despite their disproportionate involvement in foodwork, most women tended to view this situation as fair (Baxter 2000; Beagan et al. 2008). However, a few women, including Gemma’s mother, said that they did not enjoy cooking and expressed resentment about the expectation that they think about and prepare meals. Some also said that they did not enjoy the drudgery of day-to-day cooking combined with childcare (which men were often relieved of, cf. Short 2006 and Szabo 2012), suggesting that men’s specialoccasion cooking was rather different. Given sociocultural assumptions that foodwork is women’s work, it is unsurprising that when women ‘opted out’ of responsibility it necessitated explanation. As Gemma’s mother said: ‘My nan thinks it’s terrible that [husband] does all the cooking. And I said “yeah but I get in at gone 5, he has to be out at quarter to 7, there would be no time to eat if he waited for me to come in and cook a meal,” so it makes sense, you know.’

Managing foodwork and rising prices Food prices have risen by more than 12 per cent in real terms in the course of the study (Defra 2014: 08). Consistent with previous research which suggests that women tend to bear the responsibility for managing on restricted incomes (e.g. Sung and Bennett 2007; Dowler, Turner and Dobson 2001), managing the food budget in the context of rising food prices largely fell to women. Irrespective of whether men shared the cooking or helped with shopping, (for example, accompanying mothers to the supermarket or collecting and carrying bags), mothers retained responsibility for food shopping in the sense of deciding what to buy. The rationale some women gave for doing this was that men did not know the value/prices of food and were likely to overspend. Most mothers suggested they were aware of the rising price of food and tried to budget accordingly, describing strategies for managing. Megan’s mother (low income) reported that she had noticed the rising cost of some foods, even ones she regarded as basic, such as corned beef and tuna. Ronan’s mother remained highly organized and in control of meals and budgeting; given their low budget for food (£30–60 per week for a family of 5) this is not surprising. Low-income mothers and mothers at the low end of the middle-income band went to low-cost supermarkets like Lidl and Aldi and to meat wholesalers in order to cut down their food expenditure and

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to bulk-buy. They bought supermarkets’ own brands and checked out offers. The impression given, however, was that this was not a new feature of their shopping habits. However, for some, budgeting was not a problem; in a few cases this was because they had high incomes; more often it was because they already had well-established habits of shopping carefully. Owen’s mother, for example, reported being unconcerned about rising food prices and continued to shop online using Ocado. Likewise, Amelia’s father suggested he bought what they needed and they were not affected by rising prices. Thomas’ parents reported that their food expenditure had increased by Wave 2; at Wave 1 they did not have a budget and did not worry about what they spent. Harvey’s mother did not report a concern with rising prices and indeed suggested they were eating out more now that Harvey was a bit older. Yet some on higher incomes also talked about budgeting. One way of managing rising prices was to shop online. In the two years between Waves 1 and 2, several families had moved to internet shopping. As James’ mother said, this helped her to see the bill mounting up. Another, Alex’s mother, considered it a means of avoiding impulse purchases. Meghan’s mother also did her main shopping online to avoid impulse purchases, but bought smaller items at other shops during the week. Others saw online shopping as a way of avoiding hassle (for example, Zoe’s mother). However, some mothers did not like online shopping because they did not trust that the produce would be fresh, judging that the operatives in the warehouse would select the produce at the front of the shelves. Especially with things like fruit and veg and things like that, I don’t like the idea of someone else picking it out for me, I want to see what I’m getting. … And also meat as well. … Because, again, I’m a bit fussy and I look, trying to not get the fatty pieces and, you know, somebody would just pick it up because they don’t know me from Adam. (Martha’s mother, Wave 2) Some mothers changed the shops they used. Victoria’s mother, a low-income lone parent, said that her food budget was the same but she was getting less for her money. She changed to discount supermarkets to save money on the food shop. Logan’s mother (middle-income household) reported that her food shopping was costing more and that to be more efficient in terms of time and money, she was now doing bulk shopping and cooking, using a discount store (Costco) for meat and other items. At Wave 1, Mary’s mother (low-income household) did the food shopping at Sainsbury’s and Lidl, but due to a reduction in disposable income because of increasing fuel prices, she had switched to Lidl and to own brands at Wave 2. She still bought her meat, as

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at Wave 1, from the local butcher. In one low-income household in which the father’s wages had fallen by half at Wave 2, Sean’s mother said she bought cakes and snacks from the Pound shop; Sean mentioned that the sell-by dates had passed. Managing within a budget could involve very complex shopping strategies as in Alisha’s mother’s case (low end of the middle-income spectrum). In part, this was because she enjoyed cooking and her part-time job provided sufficient time to cook each day and, in part, it was to do with the type of food the Hindu family typically ate. On Saturdays, she went to Tesco with her husband while her daughter was being tutored; most Saturdays she also shopped at the market. ‘I buy my fruits from the market because I think that it’s quite fresh and nice.’ On weekdays, she stopped off on her way from work at Waitrose for ‘bread, milk and something, you know bits and pieces’. Less regularly, she went to an Indian shop ‘just to do a big shopping because we have to go [for] Indian groceries and … all the spices, I will buy the chapatti [flour] and it lasts for, 25kg I buy, so at least it’s there for a few months, stocked up. And rice always we buy like 20, 30kg in one go.’ Alisha’s mother also purchased vegetables from an Indian shop. Such a complex shopping strategy that involved buying daily from small shops needed a large-time investment and was also associated with a high-quality diet. Some mothers said that they had changed the foods they bought and were eating differently to cope with rising food costs. William’s mother (high-income household) reported going for the cheapest option with the exception of a few branded products. Many reported only buying luxury or ‘treat’ items when on special offer. Joy’s mother (middle-income household), who was employed by a large food manufacturer, was aware of portions getting smaller and expected to switch to the supermarket’s own brands as the branded products grew more expensive. Sean’s mother (low-income household) mentioned that the family ate meat less often, ensuring that it lasted longer. They also ate nonmeat dishes. She described in some detail ways of preparing lentils, which she said were a good replacement for meat, especially in a dish with rice and spinach which had ‘everything in it’. She also mentioned that fish was a good substitute for meat and Sean suggested eggs were too. Others also reported eating less meat and thus making it last longer. William’s mother said that ‘it’s a treat to have beef or lamb’, while Jade’s mother, a low-income lone parent, said she was ‘making the most out of one tray of mince’ and that ‘one tray of chicken [had] done three meals through the week’. Joshua’s mother, also a low-income lone parent, said she cooked one-pot (African) meals and was very frugal. Ronan’s mother said she was using bread to pad out meals but still worried about the children going hungry. ‘I’m thinking right what can I give them that will fill them up, so I have been doing bread and butter. But again, the butter is quite expensive and then the bread. So it’s a little bit worrying, at

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the moment if anything they’re under weight.’ Another shopping strategy was to buy only those things that others, in particular their children, would eat (for example, Aaron’s mother). Thereby mothers avoided waste and deprioritized their own needs (Lambie-Mumford et al. 2014). Victoria’s and Sarah’s mothers (both lone parents in low-income households) reported basing meals around reduced price items. In Sarah’s case, this meant that meals regularly comprised elements which were not conventionally eaten together, Yeah sometimes if there’s something really amazing in the reduced section, we’ll have a really shambles meal, so there’ll be prawns or scallops (inaudible) but with you know spag bol … so it doesn’t really matter – if it’s cheap we’ll have it. Some parents said they were increasingly aware of the need to reduce wastage of food. Christopher’s mother and father (high-income household) reported tension between them about reducing the food bill due to higher prices of food and fuel; since they lived in a semi-rural area, they were dependent on two cars to manage their busy lives. They suggested that they were increasingly aware of food wastage and had installed a new recycling bin in the kitchen. For Eva’s parents (high income at Wave 1 and middle income at Wave 2), avoidance of food wastage was a theme at both waves and reflected an important cultural and ethical stance. Megan’s mother, a low-income lone parent, also reported throwing away less and freezing foods instead. Layla’s mother (high-income household) said that she prepared food ahead of time, planned meals and froze them. Likewise, Malkeet’s mother (high-income household) reported only cooking what they would eat each day. Some used a combination of these approaches. Katie’s mother (highincome household) said that she had kept her food expenditure to the same level over the two years. Her strategies included shopping for special offers, buying more own-brand goods for certain foods, doing more online shopping, eating more value brands towards the end of the month and eating out less. Hope’s mother (low-income household) also reported that while their food budget was roughly the same, the rising price of food meant they had changed the supermarket they used, purchased own brands, shopped for offers and in the reduced section, stocked up on bargains, ate out less, purchased fewer convenience foods and did more cooking ‘from scratch’. Shopping around for offers was made possible because she was now working from home. The following cases provide examples of how mothers in households of different income levels drew on their established knowledge competences and resources in managing rising food prices.

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Low income Joshua’s mother has four children and at Wave 2, she became a lone parent. She was living in privately rented housing with an income under £15,000 a year. She set her food budget at £50 a week plus ‘extras’. In the interview, she brought out a tin of milk for the baby explaining that it cost ‘£8 something a box’. With a baby and three children she found it hard to manage, but her Ghanaian cooking practice of making dishes from scratch that everyone was expected to eat enabled her to get by. ‘We eat the same food, I don’t cook like different food for one. … I like it in that way, so even that it’s, it’s not hard work. When you cook once you are all eating together.’ Refusing to be seen as a victim of poverty, Joshua’s mother said, ‘I try to manage. They (the children) eat everything. They eat school meals and I teach them to eat Ghanaian food. We don’t eat outside.’ Joshua’s mother used to shop once a month and at Wave 2 shopped once every two weeks. She went to Lidl and in between purchased Ghanaian vegetables and sometimes, meat and baby food at the local Pakistani shop. However, she considered the price of meat there too expensive. Her preference was a meat wholesaler’s, which she said was a more cost-saving strategy. Joshua’s mother talked about buying half a goat and packaging it up into portions and keeping it in the freezer. She did not buy sweets or snacks for the children and only bought ice cream in a container to be eaten at home on a hot day. Once in a while, she said she would buy them ‘KFC – chicken sausage and burger’ – but that they would eat it at home. They never ate out. ‘You look at your income. … If I spend £20 there it costs a lot. But I can use that £20 to cook at home – we can eat it [for] about three days.’ She also managed by using up leftovers: ‘Sometimes when I cook on Friday sometimes they eat the same thing on the next day.’ She stressed the importance of teaching children frugality and of bringing up her children in a disciplined way.

Middle income In the interview with Aaron’s mother, food prices and budgeting came up a number of times. This household was at the low end of the middle-income range (under £39,000 per annum) and the mother was in short part-time hours employment and had two small children. She said their budget was about £130–£150 per month for a main shop plus top ups – about £50 per week for the other three weeks, giving a budget of around £80–£85 per week for a family of four. She had cut down on treats as well as increasing purchases from budget ranges. The family ate less fish than they would have liked as it was expensive, and choice of fruits was driven by cost not preference. At Wave 1, Aaron’s mother did her big monthly shop at Asda or Morrisons, whereas at

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Wave 2, she did it at Aldi (a discount supermarket). As at Wave 1, she bought frozen meat or she froze meat and defrosted it when needed. She shopped ‘carefully’ at Wave 1, but this seemed to have intensified. She had an organized approach to food shopping, aimed at saving money and planning meals: Yeah, it’s me, I do it. I do, I try and do a big shop once a month, so I’ll go. … Just after I’ve been paid or before we get paid, I kind of do that list of, do the food kind of diary for the month, so what we’re going to eat. And then I try from that and work out how many, what we need, like you know, what we need from that and then I’ll go to Aldi once a month and try and get loads and loads of kind of, you know, as much stuff as I can get that, obviously, you know, we need really. Things like cereals and juice and all those kind of things, they’re much cheaper there and that, so yeah, I’ll go and do a big massive shop then get as much as we can and then, normally, once a week, on the Wednesday evenings when I finish work, I normally kind of pop into Asda for about half an hour because just before it closes at nine, and just get the fresh stuff we need. So it might be a bit of the fruit and veg we’ve run out of … and the milk and the milk and bread we buy every couple of days, it feels like, but yeah, so I stock up on the fresh stuff then. … I don’t tend to buy much fresh … or I buy it fresh and then freeze it so … so then when I’m planning what I’m getting that morning, I’ll get stuff out and defrost and stuff.

High income Charlie’s household income was reported to be between £50,000 and £74, 999 and his mother’s food budget was set at about £130 a week for a family of four, which Charlie’s mother tried to stick to. She reflected that the cost of food ‘seems to be going up all the time, things are just getting more expensive’. Given the household income had gone down slightly since Wave 1 because she had reduced her hours, this meant that she had to be ‘a bit more careful’. At Wave 1 she said that she was doing the shopping online because the Tesco near them was very big and it took ages to get around. She also said that she spent more if she went into a shop, whereas shopping online allowed her to review her spending. ‘If I shop … if I’ve done the shopping and it’s come to quite a lot of money then I’ll go back through and I’ll think you know, what is it that’s um causing it to be expensive, then I’ll … you know, I’ll find the items and see if I can find cheaper alternatives.’ Charlie’s mother said that the luxuries she might delete from her online shopping cart when she reviewed it, were, for example, chocolate or fresh

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fish. ‘I have like really expensive tuna steak or something, you know, some weeks I might think that’s okay but other weeks I might think no, that’s really expensive, let’s try and find something cheaper.’ At Wave 2, Charlie’s mother continued to shop online and described how she had altered her shopping – substituting value items only for those foods where she thought there was little difference in quality – for example, vegetables: ‘I do use more own-brand makes as well, like Tesco’s, and we do use more of the Tesco’s Value, like it’s like a lot of vegetables are Tesco’s Value now which they didn’t use to be.’ However, she did not compromise on quality or taste. ‘I wouldn’t buy value for everything, you know, I’d only buy it for sort of certain things that I think that can’t be too much different if they’re Value [budget own brand].’ In particular she said that she would not compromise on meat: ‘I buy more own brands but not for meat, like if I was going to cook a spaghetti bolognaise, … I do it with the leanest beef, probably you know the Finest [Tesco’s high-end range]’.

Discussion A consistent finding in previous research has been that men’s involvement in cooking is often limited to the role of ‘assistant’ or to special or symbolic occasions such as weekend cooked breakfasts, Sunday roasts and barbeques. The qualitative research in our study found this to be true. However, we also found that some men took responsibility for foodwork and, confirming survey evidence about domestic work, men’s contribution to foodwork was found to be greater when women were engaged in full-time employment. However, men’s contribution to foodwork in the case study families decreased in more cases over time than it increased, a phenomenon explained by men’s increased commitment to paid work and the time-demands of other competing practices, for example, doing more DIY in the home. Rationales or ‘legitimate excuses’ (Finch and Mason1993: 102; and see Beagan et al. 2008) given by women for men’s unequal sharing of foodwork sustained women’s responsibility for foodwork and children’s diets in practice, reproducing gendered patterns of care and paid employment. The unequal division of foodwork was taken for granted in some cases given men’s longer working hours. Alternatively, explanations related to men’s perceived incompetence, and gendered sociocultural expectations about mothers’ responsibility for children’s (dietary) health. Because some fathers were perceived as unable or unwilling to procure or prepare healthy meals for children, they were exempted from cooking or required only as ‘back up’. In this way, practices and rationales reinforced each other. However, many

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fathers routinely helped with foodwork in other ways, for example, with fetching and carrying, shopping and washing up. In some households, foodwork was outsourced, whether through the employment of paid domestic work or increased use of convenience and preprepared foods, such as in Eva’s case. In some families, resident grandmothers contributed. Children were also said to help with preparing foods for themselves and others as well as engaging in other aspects of foodwork such as shopping, serving and cleaning up. While many children expressed a desire to do more cooking themselves, competing priorities for parents and for children meant children’s contribution in many families was limited. However, the sample was skewed towards higher-income families; had more low-income families been included, this finding might have been different (see Wills et al. 2008). In some ways, mothers’ rationales for not demanding more help from fathers and children were similar. Some argued that both fathers and children were serviced by mothers and/or did what mothers told them to do with regard to food practices. This suggests only a ‘partial collapse of the generational order of the family in one very significant domain of family life – food and eating’ (Curtis, James and Ellis 2009b: 109). In our study, both children and fathers were regarded by mothers as participating in legitimate competing practices, such as paid work and homework. Furthermore, children’s and fathers’ help was often regarded as creating ‘more work’ for mothers (Beagan et al. 2008) as the mother had to coerce children and husbands into doing their share (Baxter 2000; Beagan et al. 2008). Important aspects of this ‘additional work’ for mothers in our study were cleaning up mess and also making foodwork ‘explicit’. With regard to the former, this highlights two issues. First, children and fathers are not expected to (and do not) take responsibility for housework more generally (Curtis, James and Ellis 2009b: 107). Second, mothers’ concern with domestic ‘mess’ reflects a tension between the ‘use’ and ‘display’ functions of the home (Darke 1996). These points are related. Women take greater responsibility for housework in part because it is they who are identified with and judged by their homes (Darke 1996). The implication is not only that food and foodwork are coded ‘feminine’ activities, but also that this work intersects with broader gendered ideologies about public and private life domains, with men more associated with the former and women with the latter. A further point concerns the implicit, embodied and taken-for-granted knowledge and competences involved in domestic foodwork.3 Making this knowledge explicit requires effort and influence on women’s part. While this may result in democratization of the work, in the short term the priority for women may be to get the work done. It should also be recognized that a certain amount of power and control resides in performing the role of food provisioning, despite the drudgery, as in the broader category of housework (Oakley 1976; Martin 1984; Chapman 2004). Some mothers typically employed

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the help of men and children as assistants. Thus, control in the home becomes important to their identities; especially in the context of being a secondary earner, such control may be difficult to relinquish. The work of managing the food budget most often fell to women. Most mothers had noticed rising food prices in the period of the fieldwork (2009–13) and said they employed a range of strategies for keeping costs down. These included shopping online, shopping at discount supermarkets, changing the foods they ate and reducing food waste by planning meals and freezing foods. While in some households these were new or ‘niche’ practices (Spaargaren, Oosterveer and Loeber 2013), in others ‘making do’ was an established practice, as in the case of Joshua, whose mother relied on conventional Ghanaian food to feed the family cheaply. The three case studies demonstrate how women managed in different income households. In higher-income families, mothers had greater latitude in curbing food spending (given the budget was higher to start with) and they were able to continue buying higher quality and symbolically important foods (for example, red meat) and by substituting other foods (such as vegetables) with cheaper alternatives. At the other end of the spectrum, food preferences were subordinated to cost considerations and food selection depended on what foods were affordable rather than what the family preferred to eat. Such findings confirm other research which highlights the problematic nature of the policy focus on consumer food ‘choices’ (e.g. Attree 2006). The issue of making meals in the context of rising prices also highlights the importance of acquired knowledge and competences about how to prepare nutritious food on a limited budget. Sean’s and Joshua’s mothers (neither of whom were of white British origin) were able to describe in detail ways of meeting nutritional requirements with limited resources, in part though their adherence to cuisines based around sourcing raw ingredients, sometimes from local shops, while other mothers mentioned substituting foods or making meat ‘go further’. However, mothers in some low-income households such as Sarah’s appeared to be dependent on pre-prepared foods which were nearing or past their sell-by dates. Many of these strategies required investment of time and energy – shopping around and preparing food from scratch – and pointed to fewer options for mothers in low or low-middle-income families who work longer hours (see Griffith, O’Connell and Smith 2013).

Conclusion Confirming previous research, we found that women remained responsible for foodwork even when in paid employment. We found this at the macro level: the likelihood that cooking is shared with a spouse/partner generally increased

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with women’s hours of employment and decreased with men’s hours of employment. In the qualitative study, more men in dual earner families shared foodwork when the mother was employed full-time (about half) compared with the whole sample (about a third). While this was the same proportion at Wave 1 and Wave 2, it was not the same cases. At the micro level of the household, change in mothers’ and fathers’ hours of employment may help explain changes in the division of foodwork. However, other factors, such as moving house, birth of additional children and changing levels of interest, energy or commitment may also be important. When women ‘accounted’ for the division of foodwork, hours of work were mentioned but so were other factors including men’s assumed and actual lack of competence and women’s assumed and actual responsibility for children’s health. Overall, then, and confirming previous research, gendered cultural expectations are reinforced and reproduced within the context of gendered patterns of paid employment and childcare. While public images of men cooking reflect cultural ideals about the new fatherhood, macro-scale patterns of paid work and care need to catch up for there to be extensive change at the household level: to kick start what Arlie Hochschild (1989) calls the stalled domestic revolution. Finally, we would suggest the value of the mixed-method approach, which enables us to examine patterns at both macro and micro levels, and the benefits of a qualitative longitudinal research design, which enables us to identify the conditions that contribute to change and continuity in foodwork patterns in households.

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4 When do working families eat together? Families, meals and mealtimes

W

hile common sense assumptions and some research suggest that families have less time for eating together nowadays, there are few studies that have applied a specifically temporal lens to the study of domestic commensality. This chapter examines patterns of eating together in working families over time. It also uses quantitative and qualitative data. Drawing upon three quantitative data sets, it considers the evidence about the consumption of ‘family meals’ and whether (or not) mothers were in paid employment. By contrast, drawing on the qualitative material, it also examines the conditions under which working families were able to eat together and the times when this happened (Brannen, O'Connell and Mooney 2013). To do this we have employed the concept of synchronicity to shed light on how mealtimes and other activities were scheduled in family life and identified what in different families, facilitated and constrained eating together and how this changed over time.

Eating together in working families: The ­macro-level picture In the popular media, and in some research, a supposed decline in ‘family meals’ is linked to the rise in mothers’ employment, reflecting and reinforcing concerns about ‘working mothers’ more generally (Garey and Arendell 2001; Maher, Fraser and Wright 2010). Some studies from the United States which examine the relationship between family meal frequency and a range of child

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outcomes suggest not only that family meals are associated with healthier diets overall but also that family meals decline with increased hours of maternal employment (for example, Neumark-Sztainer et al. 2003). Other studies find a positive relationship between hours of maternal employment and child obesity (for example, Hawkins, Cole and Law 2008), with some suggesting that this association may result from fewer family meals, as mothers’ time for food preparation and eating with children is traded off against time for paid work (for example, Cawley and Liu 2007). However, findings are inconsistent (see Chapter 2). Furthermore, much of this research oversimplifies the issue and does not fully acknowledge the complexity of defining and measuring ‘families’ or ‘meals’ (Owen and Simon 2013). (See Appendix III for methodological considerations regarding the definition and measurement of ‘family meals’.) We carried out secondary analysis of three UK data sets that included questions relating to eating together in families: Understanding Society, the MCS and the NDNS. Analysis of all three data sets included children within the broad age range in which we were interested, that is 0–14 years. While the first two data sets have the advantage of large samples and detailed sociodemographic data, only the NDNS contains detailed information about diet intake. The findings from the analysis of all three quantitative data sets are summarized in Table 4.1, below.

Table 4.1  Summary of findings on children eating with parents from three quantitative data sets Dataset

Findings

Millennium Cohort Study

At both ages, over 80% of children usually ate their evening meal with parents. A very slight reduction was found in eating meals with parents if the mother was in paid employment.

(N = 14,738 at age 5; 13,781 at age 7) Understanding Society (N = 5,592)

National Diet and Nutrition Survey (N = 1,210)

Employed mothers (and fathers) are less likely than non-employed mothers to eat with children most days of the week. Those who worked longer hours ate fewer evening meals with their child/ children. Number and age of children were significant: frequency of family meals decreased as age of child increased and as number of children increased. Frequency of ‘family meals’ was not related to maternal employment. However, for all age groups ‘family meals’ were related to ‘nutrition score’ – children who usually eat ‘family meals’ had higher nutrition scores overall than children who did not.

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The MCS included a question about ‘the evening meal’ at ages five and seven. The question concerned who usually eats the evening meal with the child on weekdays. We compared the frequencies of who the child usually eats with for mothers in paid employment with those not in paid employment. At both ages, the percentage of children usually eating their evening meal with one or more parents was slightly lower when their mother was in paid employment, but the difference was very small. Understanding Society is a household study, and so covers children of all ages. The study included a question for parents about the frequency of eating ‘an evening meal’ with their child/children. Employed mothers reported eating evening meals with their children less often than mothers not in employment, but there was a complex relationship between the frequency of eating evening meals with the mother and other family factors. The age of the child, the number of children in the family and a co-resident partner in the household were all related both to the frequency of evening meals and to the mother’s employment. Therefore, while employed mothers ate an evening meal less often with their child, this was as a result of a complex set of family relationships, and not only because of the mothers’ employment. The NDNS does not include a specific question about family (or evening) meals. However, from the detailed information recorded about all eating occasions, as we discuss in Appendix III, we constructed a definition of an ‘evening meal’. Mothers in paid employment were very slightly less likely to eat family meals with their children, but the difference was very small. Around 50 per cent of mothers ate a family meal with their child on a diary day, whether or not they were in paid employment. The analysis was extended to include other demographic variables, as these might mask statistical associations. These included the child’s gender and age, social class and income. We found that the child’s age was significantly related to family meals. However, maternal employment was not related to the frequency of family meals even after accounting for the other demographic variables. A further question addressed in this analysis was whether there was any difference in the overall diet and nutrition intake of children who ate more or fewer family meals. A nutrition score was calculated and it summarized all the food eaten by a child each day. We found that the overall score was related to the frequency of family meals, such that those children who had more frequent family meals on average had higher nutrition scores.

Time and synchronicity One explanation for a possible association found by some researchers between family meals and parental employment (‘working mothers’) concerns lack of

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time. The experience of time pressure and time poverty (Hochschild 1997) is a pervasive feature of modern family life (Garhammer 1998: 327). More generally, people today are said to experience a speeding up of time (Rosa 2008) resulting in a constant state of busy-ness and time pressure (Warren 2003: 734). However, historians have noted that while a sense of hurriedness pervades contemporary life, there has been no objective reduction in the time available to spend with their families (Gillis 1996). Jacobs and Gerson (2001) suggest that the length of the average working week in the United States has remained stable between 1960 and 2000, while in Europe weekly hours of work appear to have declined: the average working time in the 12 European Union states in 1991 was 40.5 hours a week; in 2010, it was 37.5 hours a week in the 27 member states and 36.4 hours a week in the 12 ‘old’ member states (Eurofound 2012: 33). Thus it has been suggested that the causes of ‘time poverty’ and time pressure are themselves temporal: the contemporary feeling of being ‘squeezed’ for time has less to do with the shortage of time and more to do with the issue of timing (Warde 1999) and lack of ‘synchronicity’ or coordination of time schedules (Southerton 2006). Underpinning the problem of lack of synchronicity is increased simultaneity, a concept that suggests the extent to which individuals occupy different social domains concurrently (Brose 2004). Thus when parents (mothers) are at work, they remain responsible for children and have to manage households and children at a distance, facilitated by technologies that sever the time–space link (Harvey 1990) such as mobile phones. In addition, paid work is itself encroaching more and more into life outside work (Nippert-Eng 1996; Brannen 2005b). The result is that, as both parents and workers, people are forever on call, never ‘off message’ (Daly 1996). The concepts of domain simultaneity and time asynchronicity are particularly pertinent to the study of working family lives (Brose 2004: 7). Parents (mothers) struggle to synchronize the often irreconcilable spheres of their lives and to plan time–space paths which are connected to one another increasingly less smoothly (Glennie and Thrift 1996). Flexible working, an example of which is working from home, is deemed by public policy to be a solution, though workers have only the right to request it in the UK after twenty-six weeks in employment service. Even for those who do have access to ‘family friendly’ policy solutions (Lewis, Brannen and Nilsen 2009), juggling children’s care with work necessarily demands multitasking (Hochschild 1989), negotiating with others and curbing individual autonomy. As researchers have found, the conditions of asychronicity and time pressure are constitutive of the everyday experiences of working mothers (Hochschild 1997; Brannen 2005b; Brannen and Sadar Cˇernigoj 2012). Children have their activities and priorities too, with timetables that often run alongside,

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but do not coincide with, those of their parents, relating to their bodily needs, childcare, school and extra-curricular activities (Vincent and Ball 2007; Holloway and Pimlott-Wilson 2014). Parents’ schedules also include ‘time for me’, time for friends, study, housework and so on. These domains intersect, often creating irreconcilable temporal experiences. Because of, or despite, pressures of working time, families prioritize ‘quality time’, that is time devoted exclusively for family togetherness and family activity (Daly 2001; Harden et al. 2012). In the context of asynchronicity, family rituals – ‘time out of time’ – assume greater symbolic significance so that it is precisely when ‘family time’ becomes most difficult to achieve it becomes most sanctified (Gillis 1996). Writing about the home, the social anthropologist Mary Douglas suggested that ‘much of the burden of organization is carried by conspicuous fixed times. The order of the day is the infrastructure of the community’ (Douglas 1991: 301). Eating together and what is termed commensality (Fischler 1988, 2011) within domestic environments is a case in point. In popular discourse as well as social research, ‘family meals’ are viewed as a symbol of and vehicle for family ‘togetherness’, a means by which families are reproduced as such. Family meals have been the subject of recent media coverage and campaigns in the UK (for example, The Independent 2006) as well as of a significant body of international sociological and anthropological research (for example, Murcott 1982, 1983a,b; Charles and Kerr 1988; DeVault 1991; Warde and Hetherington 1994; Lupton 1996; Grieshaber 1997; Valentine 1999; Marshall 2005). As DeVault’s groundbreaking study suggests, family meals construct home and family. They are social events that bring family members together and form a basis for establishing and maintaining family culture, for ‘a “family” is not a naturally occurring collection of individuals; its reality is constructed from day to day through activities like eating together’ (1991: 39). At the same time, it is recognized that the family meal has normative status and may reflect the ideal more than the real (Wilk 2010). ‘Moral panics’ sustained by the media about the supposed demise of the family meal in contemporary society (Jackson, Olive and Smith 2009) reflect and symbolize fears about the disintegration of family (and society) (Murcott 1997, 2010). Despite a lack of evidence to support the thesis that family meals are declining, and empirical research which finds that there has been little change in the amount of time spent by families eating together (Cheng et al. 2007; Jackson, Olive and Smith 2009), assumptions about the decline of the family meal abound. However, as outlined above, hours of employment may be less important in explaining patterns of working family life than the experience of time and the ways different temporal domains and schedules intersect. Indeed, in relation to (‘convenience’) food Warde (1999) has speculated that the issue of time may be less important than that of timing for understanding cooking and

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eating patterns. With the exception of Arendell (2001), who includes family food in her discussion of how middle-class mothers manage time, and Devine et al. (2006), who suggest that the negative impact of work on family life was highly stressful for mothers, affecting their ability to make meals, relatively few studies have as yet applied an explicitly temporal lens to the ways in which meals and eating fit into the contemporary mundane working day and into the organization of children’s lives. This is a central focus of the rest of the chapter.

Eating together in working families: The ­micro-level picture In the qualitative interviews, we asked about who ate with whom, what was eaten (for example, the same meal or not), where it was eaten, the conditions under which eating together happened or not and the meaning of family meals to parents and children (Brannen, O’Connell and Mooney 2013). The qualitative study also provided longitudinal data about changes in patterns of eating together. Although we asked about what the parent and child ate on a recent day of the week, the important issue of the extent to which eating together meant that children ate the same foods as their parents was not explored systematically, although it did emerge in a number of the cases. Asked what they understood by the term ‘family meals’, participants generally described these as occasions on which the whole family ate together. Often the kind of food eaten and the location of eating were part of their description. Given the focus upon parental employment, in the qualitative study, as in the quantitative analysis described above, mothers’ hours of employment were considered in relation to the frequency with which the whole family or household ate together in the working week (Monday to Friday). Cases were categorized at Wave 1 according to whether the whole family ate together most evenings, a few evenings (or, in two-parent families, with only one parent present) or more rarely. Three categories were included: ‘meals’, in which the whole family ate together most weeknights; ‘modified family meals’, in which in two-parent families the family ate together with only one parent present; and ‘no meals’ in which the family rarely or never ate together during the week. (If lone parents ate with their children, this was considered as eating as a whole family i.e., ‘meals’). This exercise was repeated at Wave 2. As Table 4.2 shows, mothers in all three patterns of working hours are represented in all the cells of the three meals patterns at both waves. In examining maternal working hours by meal patterns, it appeared that mothers’ working hours made little difference to meal patterns. At Wave 1,

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Table 4.2  Patterns of eating by mothers’ employment hours at Waves 1 and 2 WAVE 1 FT Over 30 hrs

16–30 hrs

WAVE 2 Under 16 hrs

FT Over 30 hrs

16–30 hrs

Under 16 hrs

‘Meals’ Eat together most days

4

5

4

4

1

1

‘Modified meals’ Eat together some days

9

7

2

9

8

1

‘No meals’ Never eat together

5

10

2

5

3

1

18

22

8

18

12

3

NB. At Wave 2 three mothers were not working.

4/18 mothers working full-time ate together most days, 9/18 did so some days and 5/18 never did. Of mothers working 16–30 hours a week, 5/20 ate most meals together, while 7/20 did so some days a week and 10/20 never ate together. Of those working under 16 hours, 4/8 ate as a family, 2/8 did so some days and 2/8 never did. At Wave 2, there was a fairly even distribution of maternal working hours across the different eating patterns. Thus in contrast to research which finds a relationship between hours of maternal employment and frequency of family meals, we found that mothers’ working hours made little difference to patterns of eating together in the working week. While the findings of the quantitative data sets confirm one another (with the NDNS analysis providing evidence about the relationship between the social context of eating and nutritional outcome), the quantitative and qualitative analyses do not map onto each other neatly. In part this is due to the different concepts and measures of ‘family meals’ applied. In the qualitative research we defined family meals as the whole family eating together, which is how they were understood by participants. In the quantitative research, we were limited to the information available, which asked about whether a parent was present. In the qualitative research we examined how mothers’, fathers’ and children’s time schedules synchronized, or failed to synchronize, in relation to eating together in the working week and the stability of these patterns over time. In selecting the cases presented in the chapter, we have sought to demonstrate the key factors that contribute to a particular meal pattern in

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a household during the working week and the social processes at work. In addition, we sought in the interviews to distinguish the normative aspects of family meals from everyday practice and focused the analysis upon the working week as the study’s key focus is on parents in paid employment. We asked parents whether they subscribed to the ideal of ‘a family meal’ and what they understood by it. As might be expected, given the normativity surrounding the desirability of eating together, there was a good deal of consensus that ideally having family meals was a ‘good thing to do’. But, as their everyday lives reveal, what happened in families in practice varied.

The importance of family meals Most mothers and, in some cases, fathers, said they valued family meals. They gave a variety of reasons for doing so: practices instilled in parents’ own upbringing; to ‘sit down and spend time together’ as a family to talk and ‘catch up’; to socialize children into good habits and table manners; and practical reasons to do with getting the family fed all at the same time and/or with the same meal. I grew up having family meals and I’ll always sit at the table and eat. (Lone mother in low-income household, children aged 11 and 9 years at Wave 2) Well I think it [family meals] is a time we can all get together and sit round and discuss what we’ve done in the day. And I’ll say to them you know, ‘what have you done today? Who’ve you played with? What school work have you done? What have you eaten?’ (Mother in high-income dual earner household, children aged 7 and 3 years Wave 1) So we just thought actually it’s [eating together] really good for their language development. It can be a bit of a strain, because they finish early and want to get down. (Mother in medium-income dual earner household with children aged 3 and 2 years Wave 1) Many of the children also subscribed to the ideal, mainly for enjoyment to ‘laugh and talk together’, said Katie aged eight, while Martha aged nine spoke about family meals as being ‘good fun and sometimes my brother and I eat really slowly but in a way that’s good because we can bond because we don’t always. …’ Martha then went on to mention that her father’s job took him overseas. However, some children did not favour family meals. For example, six-year-old Joshua complained about his siblings, ‘They are always talking. I can’t eat in peace.’

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We now describe the main practices we identified in the qualitative material concerning whether and how working families achieved synchronicity in relation to meals and mealtimes.

Eating together in practice A desire to eat together did not mean this happened in practice. At Wave 1, fourteen of the families (14/47) managed to eat together most weekdays, while at Wave 2 only five did so (5/36) (Table 4.3). Fifteen managed no family meals on weekdays at Wave 1 (15/47) while at Wave 2, ten did so (10/36). At Wave 1, eighteen families managed meals on some days without both parents present, a pattern we refer to as modified family meals, with twentyone at Wave 2. Among the sixteen families taking part at both waves of the study, seven had changed patterns. Four of these had changed from eating together most nights of the week to the modified family meal pattern mainly because fathers were working longer hours. In three cases, the mothers explained that now the children were older, they stayed up later and sometimes ate with her or both parents. For example, a mother of a fouryear-old in a dual earner high-income household said at Wave 2, ‘She likes eating together … she’ll say “Are we eating together?”. Now she’s older it’s quite a social thing. It’s not like you’re eating your food and trying to shovel something into a child.’ To examine the conditions under which eating together played out in practice in the households, paying particular attention to parental employment, we have selected two cases in each pattern. The cases are ‘emblematic’, that is, they are chosen to give a sense of how different conditions intersect to produce similar observable outcomes and how these patterns change over time. To aid comparison of cases, this part of the chapter focuses on twoparent households only.

Table 4.3  Patterns of eating in the working week Waves 1 and 2: Qualitative data Wave 1

Wave 2

Eat together most days

14

5

Modified family meal

18

21

Never eat together

15

10

Total

47

36

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Eating together as a family Meals that involved both parents and children sitting down together were facilitated by the synchronization of the timetables of all the household members, including the fathers. At Wave 1, there were more households who managed this pattern but far fewer proportionally at Wave 2 (Table 4.2). In particular, at Wave 1, two work patterns facilitated fathers’ participation in family meals in the working week: (1) flexible work patterns adopted mainly by fathers in professional or managerial jobs and (2) shift work whereby fathers worked non-standard hours, typically those in routine or manual occupations (ONS 2010). However, at Wave 2, neither of the households discussed below managed this pattern. In the first case, the father was working longer hours because of a promotion and in the second, the mother had moved into shift work like her husband.

Eating together an unsustainable goal James, aged ten years at Wave 1 and twelve at Wave 2, is from a higherincome white British family. His mother works part-time, arriving home in time to collect the children from school and nursery. James has a younger brother at primary school and a sister at nursery. At Wave 1, James’s mother was responsible for foodwork and taking care of the children. She made most of the meals and, given her working hours, she and her husband took this for granted. She also expected everyone to partake of the same meal and that the family ate together every evening. The father, a manager in the family business, aimed to get home at around 6.00 p.m. which at Wave 1 he was usually able to arrange. The family has a large table in their open-plan living room and the explanation of the photos taken by James and his brother at Wave 1 suggest its place in meal routines; ‘that’s where we eat most of the time’. The boys explain that their two-year-old sister also eats with them ‘unless she’s at nursery, but she always wants to have dinner with us so that we give her a little bit of ours’. James’s mother, who grew up with her mother and grandmother, was brought up with the notion of the ‘proper dinner’, and said she finds little place for convenience foods except as a back-up, I do try, and make sure they have proper dinners you know, even if it is sausage and mash they’ll always be vegetables with it as well. Whereas before, if it was just me and [husband] I wouldn’t have worked so much. So yeah I am more aware of what we’re eating and try and make sure we all

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have it together. So you know that part of the day, they have to sit and eat dinner together. Unless my husband’s going to be late but then I’ll sit with them. (Wave 1) James’ mother explained that eating together was part of her own childhood but was also a practical solution to perceived time shortage, Because I always did it when I was a kid. And to be honest with you I find it easier. To do it once, and everyone have it than to be doing something for the children, clearing up and then starting over again for me and [my husband], it just makes more work for me and I haven’t really got the time. (Wave 1) In addition, she synchronized meals to fit in with the children’s body clocks and their bedtimes, ‘6.30 is an absolute latest for the children’ to eat. At Wave 2, there was a different story however. James’s father had been promoted and he was working longer hours – ‘If he’s lucky he can be home by 6.30 but it could be by between 6.30 and 8.30.’ As a result, the mother ate with the children while the youngest was reluctant to join them as she would have a meal at nursery earlier. James’s mother regarded the new pattern of the modified family meal as the next best thing to them all eating together, ‘We still do try to eat together. … But if not then obviously I eat with the children and then I’d put something aside then for my husband to have when he comes in later.’ (Wave 2) Nonetheless, eating together was seen as very important and was symbolically celebrated through the Sunday family roast, ‘We’re a close-knit family, we’re always together … and Sunday’s always a roast even if it’s just a takeaway at the weekend we will all sit together, that’s always been important to us.’ (James’ mother Wave 2) In addition, the father no longer had the time to contribute to any foodwork. While he used to make the packed lunches for all the family and prepared a meal once a week, this no longer happened. James mother said, ‘It’s all down to me now, yes. My husband doesn’t get any time, so … . His promotion came with more responsibility for me (laughs)’. (Wave 2)

Eating in a shift working household Gemma, aged eight years at Wave 1 and ten at Wave 2, was from a mediumincome white British family. At Wave 1, the mother worked full-time standard hours and the father worked permanent night shifts. Gemma’s younger brother was of school age. At Wave 1, the father’s shift pattern synchronized

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with his wife’s working hours. Gemma’s mother usually got into work late so that she was able to drop off the children at their respective schools, worked through her lunch break and was home at around five. The father worked night shifts as a lorry driver, leaving home at a quarter to six each evening and returning at six in the morning, depending on the length of his journey. He slept during the day and got up in the early afternoon to collect the children from school. Thus, the couple avoided the need for paid childcare, which was beyond their budget. At Wave 1, contingent on the way the couple synchronized their working patterns, the father was the MFP. When Gemma’s mother got in from work, her husband prepared the dinner (everyone partaking in the same meal) which they ate together. He then showered and went to work his night shift. This pattern suited Gemma’s mother as she did not enjoy cooking. She also accounted for not cooking in terms of their shift pattern, ‘I get in at gone five, he has to be out at quarter to seven. There would be no time to eat if he waited for me to come in and cook a meal, so it makes sense, you know?’ At Wave 2, the pattern had changed radically. Gemma’s mother now worked four nights alternating with day shifts and a two-day break in between. The father worked both day and night shift patterns so that he was on days when his wife was on nights. There were consequences for cooking and eating. Whereas at Wave 1, the father did most of the cooking, at Wave 2, the mother took a turn. However, given her antipathy she says she often resorted to going to ‘the chippy’. Also when she got ready to go out for night shift, she often did not eat a meal, ‘I won’t eat before I go, and then when I get to work it’s kind of – I’ll have some crispbreads and porridge. I don’t feel like eating a meal if you know what I mean. So I tend to eat a lot less when I’m on nights, but then make up for it when I’m on days.’ (Wave 2) In addition, at Wave 2, there was a need for tighter time scheduling of mealtimes because Gemma’s younger brother had football training twice a week and played matches after school and at weekends. This meant less time to cook and to eat together on days when he had training. At Wave 2, the family continued to eat in front of the TV, with the children eating on the floor and the parents eating on their laps. Gemma’s mother justified this arrangement at Wave 1 in the following terms: that since she and her husband work for the same firm they do not want to talk about work and that the ‘children are not yet of an age where they want to come home and want to start talking about the day at school’. However, at Wave 2, Gemma was in favour of eating together, Child Um, well good stuff is like that we all get to chat about what we’ve done (inaudible) at school and that. So we can chat about what

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we’ve done. Um … bad point is sitting in the table – cos it’s like freezing cold, and like if we had a table in there we could have been a bit warmer. Yeah, yeah no that’s what your mum was saying. I C There’s not really much bad points about it. It’s nice to have a sit down with your family, not like people rushing around everywhere. Yet, while shared meals were not idealized, Gemma’s mother thought that sitting together at a table would be ‘nice’. I do think they’re important you know. It would be nice if the four of us could sit down at a table and talk but – .We did have a table but it was too big, and now the dog’s just taken over the dining room (laughs) so that’s it now. (Wave 1) At Wave 2, Gemma’s mother recounted a similar but more elaborated story referring to the lack of heating in the conservatory where they did have a table and, more importantly, referred to the tight scheduling of meals because of her shift pattern. In the summer when the weather’s warm and we’ve got a dining room table and chairs in the conservatory, we make a point of sitting there and asking each other about our days and stuff. But in the winter, cos we’ve got no heating in the conservatory, we don’t tend to do that. And we all sort of sit here with our food on our laps and with the telly on. And nobody really bothers to speak then unless it’s to argue about what’s on the telly. But um, I do think it’s nice, because you know we don’t get much time you know together at all to sit down and eat. Probably the only time we would do would have been like a Saturday night, but again that’s, now there isn’t, we haven’t got a set weekend no more, because of the way I work. So … you know, when you can it is nice to do it. (Wave 2) Eating together in this family was seen as a practical matter of ‘getting fed’, dictated by parents’ working hours and a scarcity of time. There was an emphasis in this family upon multitasking: meals were eaten while they watched favourite television programmes. At Wave 1, Gemma’s father said he planned meals while working and chose dishes in which the cooking time of the ingredients could be synchronized. For example, he considered spaghetti bolognaise ideal, because ‘you put your spaghetti in and by the time your spaghetti’s cooked, your bolognaise is’. At Wave 2, the family’s meal patterns

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were more irregular because of changed shift patterns and the increase in the children’s extra-curricular activities.

Modified family meals Those who did not usually achieve the necessary synchronicity to realize family meals during the working week modified the family meal in terms of who participated. This happened for a number of reasons: on account of fathers arriving home from work after the children had gone to bed; the timing of children’s activities; the children’s care regimes and whether they ate in childcare; and because of the need for young children to eat early. A typical pattern in this category concerned a situation where mothers arrived home from work earlier than the fathers and children ate with their mothers because of this. Another common pattern was that in which shared meals were subordinated to children’s activities and therefore the whole family only ate together on some days of the week.

Eating with mum Malkeet, aged six years at Wave 1 and aged eight at Wave 2 was from a higher-income British Asian family. Malkeet, an only child, attended after-school provision at Wave 1 one day a week at his private school. Both parents worked full-time. At Wave 1, both had long commutes to their full-time jobs. Malkeet’s mother worked flexibly at Wave 1 to accommodate her son’s childcare, working from home two or three days a week and on other days leaving her workplace early to collect her son, which she said was ‘quite tricky’. At Wave 2, Malkeet’s mother’s contract with her employer had changed and she was working from home because her company was going through financial difficulties and had cut overtime. At both waves, Malkeet’s father worked ‘really long hours, he’ll leave home probably about six thirty, seven and come home about seven thirty, eight’. At Wave 1, Malkeet’s mother did not dwell on the importance of eating together. However, cooking was important to her. While talking about making meals from scratch on a working day (the family was Hindu and vegetarian), she mentioned that her mother was a cook in a restaurant and that she herself grew up in a large family where everyone was expected to learn to cook and where everyone ate ‘at least one meal together’. Asked if she would like to eat as a family, she says, ‘If you’re eating you can ask each other “How was your day?” Or have a little conversation. So, that’s important.’

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However, as she said, ‘Unfortunately my husband comes home quite late’ and eating together was not achievable during the week. At Wave 1, Malkeet’s mother was generally responsible for food although her husband cooked one meal at the weekend. On days when she worked from home, meals were more elaborate because she had ‘a lot more time to do stuff’. ‘A typical working day, it will be just a quick curry, and a chapatti or something. Whereas if I’m working from home I’ll do … things like samosas and stuff like that.’ Whilst healthy food including fruit continued to be important (Figure 4.1), Wave 2 saw several changes. Since Malkeet’s mother had been working from home she said she had more time for preparing meals from scratch that were in accordance with a Hindu vegetarian diet. In the interview, she was reflective about the impact of working patterns when she was commuting to an office, Working life has a lot of impact on what sort of foods you eat. I mean on an average day I wouldn’t get home till half 6 [Wave 1]. Actually probably even later because then I’d have to send him to a babysitter, pick him up, and then by the time I’ve finished cooking it’d be 8 o’clock. And for us that’s very late to eat, and that has an impact on your lifestyle as well … I preferably would like to keep it the same [as now], but obviously if I’m working again [in an office] then that will make it change. Then it’ll be a lot more quick foods rather than the healthy stuff we eat. (Wave 2) At Wave 1, on days when she did not hire a babysitter, Malkeet’s mother said she and her son ate at 6:30 p.m. and Malkeet’s father an hour or so later. At Wave 2, this was similar. The mother justified this pattern as not wanting to feed Malkeet too late in the evening. She discouraged her son from eating snacks. According to the mother’s family customs, everyone was expected to eat the same meal including her husband, ‘whatever was on the table, everybody had’. But she accommodated children’s tastes, for example, adding chillies to the adults’ food at the end of cooking ‘so the dishes are not too spicy for children’. The context in which this family lived and ate changed dramatically at Wave 2. Whereas at Wave 1 there was a large dining table, at Wave 2 the family had no space for a table because they had downshifted to a small flat. The living room moreover was dominated by a large mattress surrounded by large sofas. As a result, meals were eaten on laps and in front of the TV. However, the habit of eating the same meal remained the same. We’re still eating the same foods, it’s just … before we’d sit on the dining table when we have gatherings, but now we obviously don’t tend to have that many because we can’t invite people. (Wave 2)

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Figure 4.1  Drawings of favourite foods at Wave 1 and Wave 2 by Malkeet.

Fitting meals around children’s activities Christopher, aged two years at Wave 1 and four at Wave 2, was from a higher-income white British family. The mother worked part-time and was responsible for cooking and managing childcare. Christopher had two older sisters. At Wave 1, when her husband was home ‘on time’ he ate with them but otherwise Christopher’s mother ate with the children and left food for her husband to microwave. The same pattern occurred at Wave 2. At Wave 1, Christopher’s mother worked four days a week, from eight to three during term-time. She described organizing her working day around the children suggesting that she had time to prepare meals. Although Christopher’s father worked in a job that was ‘very full time’, as a professional worker he was able to exercise some flexibility. He took the two girls to school two days a week and did the ferrying for the eldest daughter’s extra-curricular activities at least two nights a week. Sometimes he collected Christopher on his way back from taking the eldest girl to sports training. As at Wave 1, Christopher’s mother was still responsible for all the cooking at Wave 2. Meals tended to be ‘proper meals’ in that they were usually hot and included fresh vegetables (Murcott 1982, 1983a; Charles and Kerr 1988). The children’s tastes were described as quite adventurous. The mother had a passion for food. She reported cooking ‘roasts’ (time consuming) during the working week, but also took short cuts with simple dishes. Although she said she did not cater for individual food preferences, she sometimes adapted the meals so that the children did not always eat exactly the same meal. However, while at Wave 2 the mother said she still enjoyed cooking and prepared dishes

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that everyone in the family was expected to eat, this pattern was difficult to sustain. She mentioned that she no longer tried out new dishes. Meals were more individualized. In part, this was because the children were going through what she described as ‘phases’ in terms of their food preferences and they were being more assertive about what they would eat for meals, So last night, for example, I had some chilli, I’d made a chilli but I’d used a packet of Schwartz chilli con carne mix and we’d had it one night and I’d frozen some but it was quite spicy and I thought – last night, I thought ‘Oh, they’re not going to eat that’ … because she [eldest child] was at football, she was going to have the leftover pork with some sweet and sour sauce and rice. So in our village shop, after school, I’d managed to get, they had some chicken breasts. So I made this chicken sweet and sour for when [eldest child] got in … they weren’t in till eight o’clock. I had the chilli with the other two and … what was Christopher going to have? … [other child] got the lasagne, and Christopher wanted some, I wasn’t going up the shop to buy another one so she did give him a bit of it. Then I did this sweet and sour chicken and cooked the rice for all of us and did my chilli at the same time, so we all had different. It was really leftovers. (Wave 2) At Wave 1, Christopher’s mother successfully fitted food preparation into the household’s busy schedule, whereas this had also become more difficult at Wave 2 because the children were doing even more after-school activities. M Yeah, you see, Mondays, [older daughter] has football training Monday night and [younger daughter] has Brownies so [husband] has to be home at four. So I take [older daughter] to football, which is 45 minutes away on a good day. So drop her off there for five and then I go to swimming two miles up the road, get back for seven to pick her up, we get home at ten to eight, eight o’clock. (Wave 2) Yet eating together remained important to Christopher’s mother. As a way of socializing the children into eating properly, at Wave 1 she described the rituals of getting the children to wash their hands before meals, ‘turn the telly off and go to the dining room’ and her efforts to keep the three children at the table until the meal is finished. However, despite a strong emphasis in this family on eating together the children’s food preferences meant that they no longer routinely ate the same foods for meals and also that, because of the children’s participation in external activities, the family did not usually eat together on weeknights.

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Asynchronicity: The absence of family meals In some families, meals were rarely or never eaten together during the working week. While many households managed eating together at weekends, two families only ate together at Christmas. In some households, the individualization of tastes of family members made shared meals a rarity while in others meals were not so much ‘individualized’ as ‘collectivized’, eaten by the children with other children in different settings (school, afterschool club and day care). In some families, children’s needs were governed by bodily tempos and appetites so that they ate earlier than their parents, while in others, the parents preferred to eat separately and later than their children.

Individualized meals Hayley, aged eleven years at Wave 1 and thirteen at Wave 2, was from a middle-income white British family. The mother worked full-time and was the MFP. Hayley had an older sister who is in paid employment and whose boyfriend also lived with them. Hayley’s mother worked flexible hours at Wave 1, leaving the house at a quarter to six in the morning and returning at three o’clock to ‘be there’ for her youngest daughter coming home from school. At Wave 1, this pattern enabled her to prepare evening meals. Her husband’s job, less secure and more unpredictable, meant he had to travel all over the area and to work hours when he could expect to find people at home. The work patterns of the older daughter and boyfriend also varied. There was no family meal or mealtime in this household. At Wave 1, Hayley’s mother said, ‘we don’t eat at the same times, we’re all in different times, wanting at different times. So we tend to just be doing our own thing, which is a shame.’ (Wave 1) At Wave 1, Hayley’s mother explained that eating separately was also dictated in part by choice of television programme. Hayley’s mother said that she and Hayley preferred to eat on their laps watching TV and ‘[husband] tends to go in the back room and watch telly in there because he likes sport and I’m usually watching telly in here, something different’. At Wave 2, the story was similar: I wish (eating together) happened here, everybody sit together eating the same thing but it doesn’t happen, everyone’s sort of got their own lives really and we all watch different things on the telly (laughs) so we seem to living in here but all sort of separate. I think it would be nice, it would be really nice so you can all sit and chat together, it just, it never happens, I think the only time [husband] will come and sit with us is Christmas Day. (Wave 2)

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At Wave 1, Hayley’s mother and father were also following different weight loss diets and she argued that they avoided being near others eating because they found the foods disgusting or tempting. Hayley herself also ate a very limited range of foods (Figure 4.2). At Wave 1, her mother said, It’s easier to say what she does like. She eats bread, baked beans, plain pasta, nothing on it, she’ll eat sausages, she’ll eat mash, she’ll eat MacDonald’s chicken nuggets and chips, she’ll eat a burger sort of separate not with things in. She’ll eat pizza, basically that’s it really. She’ll eat cereal, she likes porridge. (Wave 1) While Hayley’s mother was invested in the ‘nice idea’ of eating together, she accepted that it did not happen, not even at weekends. Hayley herself was quite independent on Saturdays, ‘She wants to be with her friends so she’ll go out in the morning, she’ll go shopping down the high road and I won’t see her till the shops are shut sort of later in the day really.’ (Wave 1) Asked what she bought to eat when out with her friends, Hayley said, ‘Um it depends, if I had more than a pound, then I’d get I think a sausage roll … if I had less than a pound, I would probably have a packet of crisps and a few sweets.’ (Wave 1) At Wave 2, the couple had given up dieting. Hayley was even more restricted in her diet. According to her mother and confirmed by Hayley, it

Figure 4.2  Hayley’s drawing of a favourite meal (pizza and pasta) at Wave 1.

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largely consisted of, ‘Oh God, well what she tends to eat is pasta, beans, bread, cereal and she will eat chicken nuggets and chips from McDonald’s. Chocolate, cakes, sweets.’ At Wave 1, in spite of a lack of synchronicity of both dietary tastes and working times, Hayley’s mother prepared the meals for everyone in the household, including her older daughter and boyfriend, which she resented. She began cooking shortly after she got home from work and continued into the evening. At Wave 2, she had ‘given up’ and was only cooking for herself and her husband. At Wave 2, when she got home Hayley had a different meal. As her mother noted, I tend to leave her to do what she wants, so I’ll boil her up some pasta, that’s the usual thing or she might have some chicken dipper-type things and potato waffles. …. I’ve given up like sort of feeding her, making her eat dinners. I go through sort of different sort of times and I think right, you will sit and eat these dinners and you’re not having anything else. So I’ve tried to force her and then she ends up with like a migraine and she’s really ill and she’s like been sick and that lot. So then I give in but at least she’s healthy, she’s not ill often, she just lives on pasta and maybe some beans on toast and things like that, plain food, it’s got to be plain. (Wave 2)

Collectivized meals In this last case, we present a case in which the children ate all their meals in school or childcare because of the couple’s long working days. The mother in this family unsurprisingly opted not to take part at Wave 2, on the grounds that their lives were too hectic. Rishab, aged six, lived in a high-income British Asian family. His mother worked full-time and was responsible for the cooking. Rishab had a twoyear-old sister. The parents’ long commutes to work necessitated Rishab’s mother leaving very early and his father coming home late. The children are woken at 6 a.m. because the mother had to leave by 7 a.m. to get to her job. The children’s father took the children to breakfast club at 8 a.m. and their mother collected the children at 5: 30 a.m. from after-school club. In order to be able to leave work early enough to collect the children, the mother worked through lunch and sometimes brought work home. The children ate three meals (breakfast, lunch and tea) in school and childcare. Hence, meals were not so much individualized in this family as collectivized, eaten by the children

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with other children in school, after-school club and childcare. The parents also ate breakfast and lunch outside the home, but ate dinner together after the children were in bed. Rishab’s mother subscribed to the ideal of eating together. Brought up in a family where mealtimes were important, she said that ‘it would be nicer if we could eat more together more often’. However, as this was not possible she dismissed the matter: ‘What with us being at work and life styles being so rushed, it’s really difficult to fit it all in.’ In addition, the father did not get home from work until after seven during the week. ‘The only times really that we eat together as a family is at weekends.’ At Wave 1, Rishab’s mother did most of the cooking. She engaged in practices of ‘time shifting’ (Warde 1999) in which time for cooking is moved to the weekend. She prepared meals from fresh ingredients in advance including making small portions for the children, ‘something like spaghetti bolognaise’, and froze them. This rescheduling of foodwork meant that she could spend time with the children when she got home, rather than cooking, ‘I don’t get in till about 6 o’clock. So you know I could get in and start cooking straight away and stuff, but it just means then I have no time with my children at all because I’m concentrating on cooking.’ Rishab’s mother also pre-prepared meals for the adults at weekends – curries which they ate in the evenings with chapattis, ‘I’ll make a couple of curries at the weekend, and they just stay in the fridge so we don’t have to freeze them. And.., so, in the evening I’ll just make some chapatti to go with the curry. And then we’ll heat up the curry and we’ll have the chapatti with it.’ Her husband cooked a Thai curry once a week. In this family, there was also a lack of synchronization of body clocks of children and adults. Because the children rose so early, Rishab’s mother insisted they had a strict bedtime routine, starting at seven. However, they were hungry when they got home from after-school club and, because the mother did not believe in giving her children snacks, this meant that they needed to eat earlier than their parents did. Even though adult and child eating times were not coordinated, their tastes were synchronized. Rishab’s mother commented that Rishab likes most things she cooked. In his interview, Rishab confirmed this and seemed to accept the absence of snacks.

Discussion Whether or not family meals are declining in practice, the analysis of both the qualitative and quantitative data suggests that they remain a goal that most parents would like to achieve. As the qualitative analysis suggests,

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eating together is a way of ‘doing family’ but there are also practical and budgetary reasons. However, the reality of contemporary working lives makes eating together difficult and it is evident from the qualitative data that this is increasingly the case as children age and families change, in particular as fathers increase their working hours for reasons to do with promotion and the need to maximize earnings. Mothers’ accounts suggest little regret about this but rather an accommodation to reality, in the recognition perhaps that commitments of different family members are constantly and inevitably in flux. At Wave 1 when children were younger, some families (14/47) were able to synchronize their eating times most days of the working week (Monday to Friday) with only a handful at Wave 2 (5/16). At the other extreme, around a third never ate together in the working week (15/47) and at Wave 2, the proportion was roughly the same (10/36). Not only was there no synchronicity in mealtimes, but different meals were also often provided for different family members. However, the majority of families achieved partial coordination of timetables and ate together on at least some days of the working week, or with one parent (typically the mother) eating with children. As children age and a second or third child is born, households become increasingly busy and the modified version of family meals is commonplace (see also Gillman et al. 2000). A number of factors contribute to the (a)synchronicity of eating patterns. First, working hours of parents are important1 but they are also increasingly subject to flexibility with more non-standard hours reflecting the situation in the United States (Schor 1991). Britain has recently seen a rise in zero hours contracts, more people working from home (Lewis, Brannen and Nilsen 2009) and, with current economic retrenchment, more people are increasingly fearful about job loss and therefore accepting of the employment conditions on offer (Lansley 2012). Synchronicity is also governed by the fit (or not) between mothers’ and fathers’ work-time schedules, confirming the importance of taking account of work hours at the household level (Barnett, Gareis and Brennan 2009). Yet, in contrast to popular wisdom, and some survey research, mothers’ working hours per se were not critical in the qualitative analysis. More important was how mothers adapted their hours to fit in with their children’s timetables, which meant taking responsibility for preparing family meals, as demonstrated in most of the cases discussed. (See also Chapter 3). Even when mothers worked shorter or flexible hours and fathers worked full-time, in some families fathers ate with the family, as in the case of James’ family. Shift work for men can facilitate more time for cooking and eating together, as in Gemma’s family at Wave 1. On the other hand, while shift working may facilitate shift parenting it can take time away from eating and being together as a family (Lewis 2009). In Gemma’s family, eating together was disrupted by changes in parents’ shifts at Wave 2. When

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Gemma’s mother became a shift worker, she tended to skip meals for herself, while not enjoying cooking. A second issue governing synchronicity is children’s participation in extracurricular activities, as in the case of Christopher’s siblings, affecting whether all the children were fed at the same time. As we saw in this case, eating together became more difficult to achieve as his siblings got older and engaged in more activities. When Christopher also engages in extra-curricular activities, this will put further pressure on the family eating together. It is therefore more difficult to coordinate the time paths of the household the more members there are. In this regard, the qualitative findings confirm the quantitative analyses which suggest fewer family meals with increasing family size. A third issue concerns children’s ages, which affects parents’ decisions about when to feed their children. Young children in the UK are typically fed early in the evening. As we have found, when children get older they stay up later and some begin to eat with their parents. By contrast, when children ate in childcare or had nannies who looked after and cooked for them, they never ate together with parents in the working week, as in Rishab’s case. Rishab’s everyday eating routines were also governed by his parents’ long commutes to work. Because his parents needed to leave home early in the morning, they believed the children should be put to bed early and hence ate early. A fourth issue relates to the coordination of food preferences. Hayley, who had a grown-up sister and in whose family everyone ‘did their own thing’, liked very few foods. This created difficulties for her mother who was in charge of cooking. In this household, tastes, mealtimes, dishes and settings were subject to individual preferences. However, by Wave 2, Hayley’s mother had given up cooking for the household apart from preparing meals for herself and her husband. Hayley was very much in charge of her own diet. A fifth issue is the organization and coordination of eating space. While the table is an ‘important symbol or even metonym of the family’ (Lupton 1996: 39), sitting at the table was by no means the only pattern, even for those who ate together. Several families ate meals on the sofa in front of the TV, with some children sitting on the floor. However, some mothers did not regard this as ‘the proper thing to do’. As one mother said, ‘Just sitting together in front of the television’ is ‘really sad’. For Gemma’s family, however, eating in front of the TV was just one way of multitasking in the context of extreme time pressure. In the case of Malkeet, there was little choice but to eat on laps, since the family had downsized and were subject to extreme pressure on home space. Lastly, despite normative assumptions and some evidence (including from the NDNS analysis) that eating together makes for improved overall diet quality, prioritizing eating together as a family may also involve de-prioritizing good nutrition. For example, in one case (not presented) children were fed substantial snacks, including chips, to keep them going until the ‘proper’

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family meal was on the table. In Malkeet’s and Rishab’s cases, their mothers wanted the children to eat early, in part because they were opposed to children snacking. Thereby the benefits of not snacking were prioritized over eating as a family, or at least served to justify it in mothers’ accounts. Furthermore, some evidence suggests that it is eating the same foods as adults, rather than eating at the same time as them, that contributes to better dietary intake for children (Skafida 2013), suggesting the importance of acknowledging the complexity of the issue. However, although this complexity became evident in some of the families who ate together, this was not examined systematically in the qualitative study, as already noted.

Conclusion The survey evidence on family meals is not conclusive although some evidence suggests long parental hours are associated with fewer family meals (Understanding Society). However, the evidence also suggests that other factors may be as relevant, notably the number of children in the family and the child’s age (Understanding Society). As the NDNS shows, the quality of children’s diet is an important factor with an association between higher nutrition scores and more frequent eating with parents. It is likely therefore that the processes involved are complex. As the case analysis from the qualitative study demonstrates, it is not mothers’ employment per se that influences the frequency and practice of family meals in the working week. Rather the issue of timing is important, in particular the ways in which the time paths of parents and children are synchronized (or not) at the household level. A variety of factors emerged as important in facilitating the synchronicity necessary to eat together, namely parents’ combined work schedules, children’s extra-curricular commitments, their ages, the size of the family and the degree to which food tastes and preferences are shared and catered for. Over time some of these factors became more important, in particular changes and phases of children’s food preferences, the impact of their own or their siblings’ after-school activities and the ways in which parents’ working hours interacted at the household level. This analysis, while limited to a relatively small sample, therefore goes beyond the survey data that we and others have carried out concerning the link between family meals and maternal employment. Such studies need to take account of the way children’s lives change and to examine how both parents’ working hours play out at the household level. We began this chapter with a quotation from Mary Douglas which suggests that the organization of social institutions depends upon a shared commitment

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to coming together at fixed times. However, as we argue, family meals in the working week are for many a matter of pragmatics even if they are said to be an aspiration. Eating practices in households with young children are embedded in everyday routines and processes which are subject to change. Parents’ work schedules alter and children get older and develop different tastes, routines and commitments. The cases demonstrate the complexities of family life but are also indicative of the dynamic nature of eating arrangements. What is more static, however, is mothers’ conventional responsibility for cooking, especially for meals that include their children, and their commitment to the family meal as a practice to aim for, a topic we discussed in Chapter 3. Mothers also adapt their working hours to fit around their families (see Chapter 3), a practice that is underpinned by and reinforces their taking more responsibility for feeding families. Fathers typically work longer hours than mothers and though they help with cooking, they rarely take major responsibility for it (see Chapter 3). Nearly three-quarters of fathers did not participate in family meals over the working week at Wave 1 and this number was even higher at Wave 2 (30–36). Exceptions were fathers who had more control over their work time or men who worked shifts which they could coordinate with mothers’ working hours.

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5 How much power do children wield over what they eat?

A

crucial element of current sociological thinking about children and childhood is that childhood is a generational concept and can only really be understood in the context of adult–child relations (Alanen 2003). In this chapter, we examine children’s and parents’ practices concerning the negotiation of food and the relations of power and control in which children's eating and food are embedded. It analyses the ways in which parents and children seek to exercise power over children’s food and examines, while focusing on a number of cases, how these negotiations change over time and in relation to social context (O’Connell and Brannen 2014). The analysis identifies five main patterns of negotiation. The chapter considers the importance of parents’ resources, objectives and conceptions of ‘the child’ to the extent and types of control exercised over children’s eating. It suggests that these practices emerge in relation, and sometimes in response, to children’s practices. Finally, the chapter reflects on the reality that while children’s food is both subject to and a means of control for parents, public discourses around children’s food serve to regulate parents.

Negotiation and control: Children and parents Research within public health nutrition has tended to conceptualize children as passive ‘recipients’ of nutrition – as objects to be acted upon rather than as the subjects or agents of change (e.g. Benton 2004 and see Woodhead and Faulkner 2000; Christensen 2004). They have also diverted attention from the wider social determinants of health. ‘Parenting styles’ (Baumrind 1971; Maccoby and Martin 1983) have been conceptualized as explanations

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for child and adolescent outcomes, for example, food consumption, BMI and other health behaviours (e.g. Kremers et al. 2003; Pearson et al. 2010). Some studies suggest that parenting styles generally, and feeding styles in particular, are related to parents’ socio-economic status and may account for observed differences between the nutritional status of children in higher and lower social classes.1 As already noted, some research also links mothers’ hours of employment with children’s BMI and eating behaviours (e.g. Hawkins, Cole and Law 2008, 2009). In suggesting that only parents, and more specifically mothers, determine children’s diets, such research mirrors hegemonic discourses which ‘blame’ mothers for negative child outcomes (Garey and Arendell 2001; Maher et al. 2010; O’Connell 2011). Public health interventions have tended to reflect these approaches, positioning mothers as central to reducing rates of childhood obesity (Warin et al. 2008). Such models have been criticized for assuming parents are willing and able to prioritize nutrition (Murphy, Parker and Phipps 1998) and for reproducing ‘a hierarchical, unidirectional understanding of intergenerational relations, which highlights parents’ responsibility for children’s food and eating practices’ (Curtis, Stapleton and James 2011: 429). In contrast to this determinist model, it is also suggested that the ‘negotiated provisional family’ is a feature of late modernity (Beck 1992: 129). Accordingly, parental authority is said to be taken for granted less than in the past and family relations increasingly negotiated at the everyday level (Solberg 1995; Giddens 1991). Some suggest a parallel process, which is that as children’s freedoms become more constrained outside the home, children’s control within the home becomes more significant (Zeiher 2001; Mayall 2002), giving them more autonomy ‘in their private self-expression, especially in regard to activities of daily living, personal appearance, and defiance of parents’ (Rutherford 2009: 337). With respect to food, children’s demands are increasingly said to be responded to in unprecedented ways. Dixon and Banwell (2004) propose that ‘metaphorically, children are displacing male adults at the head of the table’ as parenting practices become more child-centred (2004: 192). However, critics of the ‘negotiated family’ argument suggest that child– parent relationships are still fundamentally hierarchical and unequal (Jamieson 1998: 65), with some research suggesting contemporary parents often play down the control they seek to exert over their children (Jamieson 1999; Walkerdine and Lucey 1989; Brannen et al. 1994). In terms of children’s food practices, some researchers highlight how the commercial world exploits children’s expression of agency (Schor 2004), pointing to the deleterious consequences for children’s health of food marketing which undermines parents’ attempts to feed children a healthy diet (Schor and Ford 2007; McDermott et al. 2006). Particular attention has been paid to children’s ‘pester power’, that is, their influence over adult purchasing. However, as

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Cook (2008b) and Gram (2010) point out, this literature tends to suffer from a conceptualization of consumption as a rational, linear and explicit process and assumes that children make individual, self-conscious decisions about their consumption that are unmediated by parental agendas and concerns (Marshall, O’Donohoe and Kline 2007). Sociological studies of children’s food in families have focused on food as an index of generational relations (James, Curtis and Ellis 2009), a medium for negotiating meanings (Cook 2008a), a vehicle for expressing identity (Valentine 1999) and a forum for enacting resistance (Grieshaber 1997). However, studies of children’s food practices which have taken power and control as their foci have tended to study children’s institutions such as nurseries (e.g. Alcock 2007), schools (Gustafsson 2002; Pike 2008) and care homes (McIntosh et al. 2010). But families are also political sites (Ochs and Taylor 1992), involving power relations, and engaged in the control of resources (Brannen and Wilson 1987). For most children, families also mediate wider power structures (BackettMilburn and Harden 2004). Power is exercised covertly as well as overtly (Bernstein 1977) and is not always or usually coercive or explicit (Clastres 1987 [1974]; Foucault 1995 [1977]; Devine 2004). Indeed, as Lukes (2005) suggests, dimensions of power include setting the agenda and influencing preferences and desires. Since the inculcation of tastes is highly relevant to a discussion of children’s food, a focus on the covert, as well as overt, control practices of parents and children is required.

Patterns of negotiation and control At Waves 1 and 2, parents were asked whether and how they limited or encouraged children’s consumption of particular foods and how much control children were given about what they ate at home and elsewhere. At Wave 1, but not at Wave 2, we asked children to say or write down on a timeline what they ate throughout the day and to use traffic light stickers (Mauthner 1997) to show how much ‘say’ they had about food and eating in different places.2 Again at Wave 1, but not at Wave 2, to find out about food purchasing we gave children drawings of shopping trolleys to fill with items they would like to buy and talked to them about their choices. At both waves, to seek children’s views about negotiations with parents over food we showed them two photographic vignettes: one of a man and boy fighting over a large packet of crisps in a supermarket and another of a girl refusing food being offered to her on a fork. We asked the children what they thought was happening in each picture, why and whether this had ever happened to them. In addition, nine of

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the target children took photographs of food and eating in their everyday lives at Wave 1 and 8 at Wave 2 (Appendix I). These were discussed with children at a subsequent visit (O’Connell 2013). Based on these different data from children and parents and on the detailed analytic summaries of the families, we classified the families according to a typology of control. We took account in this typology of the range of practices that parents and children reported, albeit that such practices may not have been seen or presented as control by the research participants. Parental control of children’s food included restricting or encouraging consumption of particular foods, while children’s control practices involved demanding, taking and refusing certain foods. Some parental control was overt, that is, it was identified by the child and/or parent, while other modes of control were more subtle or covert and not usually understood in these terms (Gram 2010). We further tried to take account of strength of and balance of control for each paired child and parent, based on discussions with all the team members who took part in the fieldwork and analysis. Table 5.1 shows the distribution of cases according to the classification that we will flesh out in the discussion. The practices described by parents and children operated in relation to food as described at particular moments in time. The ways in which we categorized these practices represent therefore a snapshot at each Wave. In addition this categorization needs to be seen as lying along a continuation of control. Nor do we intend to imply that these patterns may be generalized to parent–child relations within the households more generally. Unsurprisingly for children when they were younger, at Wave 1, the largest group of cases (21/47) falls within category A(i) and A(ii) in which there is strong parental authority exercised by parents either overtly or covertly over children’s food and eating (Table 5.1). This is less the case at Wave 2.

Table 5.1  Parent and child control of children’s food Control A(i) Strong parent control/weaker child control – overt

Wave 1 14

Wave 2 8

A(ii) Strong parent control/weaker child control – covert

7

5

B Child resistant to strong parent control

1

3

C Strong child control/weaker parent control

12

10

D Negotiated order/balance of control between parent and child

13

10

47

36

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At Wave 1, there was only one case in which a child exercised considerable resistance in the face of strong parental control (B); there were three such cases at Wave 2. As Table 5.1 also shows, in about a quarter of cases (12/47 at Wave 1 and 10/36 at Wave 2) children exert a significant amount of control themselves, while parents appear to go along with this (C). Equally common is the pattern in which there was no clear imbalance of power and parent and child reached some accommodation, a pattern we term ‘negotiated order’ (D). Table 5.1 does not show the movement between patterns. Sixteen of the thirty-six families interviewed at Wave 2 appear to have changed the pattern of control from Wave 1, with twenty reporting a similar picture to that of Wave 1. The remainder of the chapter analyses several cases. They are organized according to the five emblematic modes of control practices identified at Wave 1, with further explication of what appeared to be happening at Wave 2.

A(i)  Overt parental control At Wave 1, the average age of children in this group is 4.6 years. The parents were employed across all occupational statuses and were more likely to be from British ethnic minorities (7/14) than white British. While all parents used overt control strategies on occasion, in fourteen households this appeared to be pervasive and accepted by the child. Strategies included not purchasing certain foods, making these foods unavailable to children at home and locking foods away. Sophia’s mother, for example, kept crisps in the boot of the car so that her four children could not take more than their fair share. Parents in this category overtly used food as a reward (for example, in potty training and to encourage taking medicine), or as a punishment or bribe, for example, withholding dessert, ‘until I think they’ve eaten enough of their dinner’. With the exception of making allowances for spiciness, children’s tastes and preferences were not construed as different from others in the family.

Alisha Alisha, aged ten at Wave 2 and an only child, lives in a middle-income Indian family with her mother, father and paternal grandmother in a city. Her mother works as a breakfast club and lunchtime assistant during term-time and her father works full-time in administration, with an additional part-time weekend job.

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At Wave 1, Alisha’s mother suggested there was little room for negotiation over food in this family: ‘I just make a rule that everybody’s eating the same – whatever is on the table.’ When asked, she could not remember a time when she had given her daughter an alternative, ‘It’s not happened that I give her another option, no. Did it happen Alisha? No I don’t think so.’ Alisha confirmed her mother’s account, suggesting that she was ‘made’ to eat everything and not waste food; if there was anything left over in her packed lunch when mum picked her up she had to eat it either when she got home or in the car on the journey to an after-school activity. ‘So there’s no choice, I have to eat it at the end of the day.’ Discussing her photograph taken at Wave 1 of the Indian dishes her mother had prepared, Alisha reiterated this, saying that ‘maybe I don’t want to (eat everything on the table), but I have to.’ Alisha’s response to the vignette activity at both Waves 1 and 2 suggested that she accepted her mother’s authority. She said the mother in the vignette that depicted a girl being made to eat the food insisted ‘because it will be good for her’ and that she herself would be threatened with a double amount if she refused to eat something. Thus, compliance was enforced and food was both subject to, and a means of, overt parental control. At Wave 2, Alisha’s mother still gives Alisha little choice although she added that she did ask her what she wanted for supper. It transpires that as Alisha has got older, her tastes have changed and she is now fussier about food. Alisha complains about having Indian food every day and her mother now cooks a variety of non-Indian food like pizza and pasta dishes. Asked to compare Wave 1 and Wave 2 photos, Alisha confirms this: ‘I think two years ago, like before last time, we used to have like chapatti and curry like nearly every weekday. And I think now it’s changed a bit, like we have it like three times a week, and then like two days we have like something different.’ A photograph taken by Alisha at Wave 2 demonstrates the changes in her preferences towards eating more Western food in her diet and her mother’s indulgence of this. Her mother makes both Indian and Western dishes from scratch and is proud of her cooking. Referring to the Western dish in the photograph Alisha took at Wave 2, ‘So I made it and she loves [it]. I made two big portions the next day. So she had it the same. It’s got some vegetables, fresh cream.’ On the other hand, her mother continues to exercise authority over Alisha, ‘but I do make her eat, … she does end up eating … but before she never used to say anything yeah, before she was not saying anything, she just eat. Nowadays she does “Oh what a boring food you have made what this and what that.”’ Nonetheless, both mother and daughter give the strong impression that whatever her mother says still goes. The mother says, ‘Yes everybody is the same dish yeah. I’m a bit strict on that side, I think sometimes she doesn’t like the curry I made, I say okay you can help yourself with the cereal, but I don’t give a choice basically. Whatever is on the table they have to eat.’

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In this case, we can see the continuing exercise of strong maternal authority over her daughter’s diet but that, in the context of her daughter approaching the transition to secondary school, the daughter was beginning to exert her own preferences.

A(ii) Covert parental control Seven cases at Wave 1 fitted the pattern of strong covert control by parents and less control by children. Practices included ‘duping’ children into eating foods, for example, hiding vegetables in sauces or ‘sneaking’ them into omelettes, and socializing children into family norms through parental modelling and extended negotiation or reasoning. Some parents also made games out of eating, such as counting peas on a fork. In these cases, the injunction to ‘try’ foods was strong but parents veiled their expectations of children, giving them the illusion of ‘choice’ or ‘democracy’ (Walkerdine and Lucey 1989). All cases in this category at Wave 1 (7) were in households where a parent was in a professional or intermediate occupation, with a mix in terms of ethnicity. The average age of children was 4.9 years. At Wave 2, we were able to interview only four of the cases in this group but in two cases the pattern had changed from covert to overt control, as in the following case of Eva.

Eva Eva is six years old at Wave 2 and lives with her first-generation migrant parents in a high-income family (Wave 1) in a coastal city. At Wave 1, the father worked a lot from home and did most of the cooking. The family had an au pair that helped to keep the family to a routine of eating together and whose presence also meant they ate a diet based upon fresh produce, including vegetables from a box scheme. In this household, the parents exercised considerable control over their daughter’s diet at Wave 1 but in subtle and covert ways. By Wave 2, control was being exercised more overtly while at the same time, with Eva’s transition to primary school, parental control over her diet was curtailed. At Wave 1, the parents were proud of the variety of foods that Eva ate and attributed this to their multicultural influence. Eva’s parents were both committed ethical or ‘reflexive’ consumers (Guthman 2003). They had strong opinions about highly processed foods and limited these in order to ensure that Eva did not acquire a taste for them: Father I just think you have to draw a line and Cheese strings is the line. Mother What if she likes it too much? (Wave 1)

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In addition to some overt control (e.g. instructing the au pair about what to prepare, limiting access to some foods) the parents also covertly controlled Eva’s diet by inculcating in Eva a sense of responsibility for what she ate – moral values about good food as well as ‘self control’. Eva had a cupboard of treats which was presented in the interview as a means of instilling this responsibility. Her mother said, We agreed this policy, er we did a lot of thinking on how to handle this and we basically decided that we have to start teaching her to take responsibility from the early stage. So basically we would never say don’t have it, we would say think how many you’ve had today, and you’re very clever and you will know whether you should have more or not. (Wave 1) However, while the father said, ‘She controls [access to the cupboard] herself’, later in the interview he suggested they encouraged her to dance if she took too much and her mother acknowledged that ‘we say “your belly will hurt”, so in that respect we don’t give her choice you know’. Eva’s interview account at Wave 1 suggested she understood and accepted her parents’ norms about ‘good’ food. She drew fruit on the line drawing of a shopping trolley she was asked to fill with items of food. When asked if she ever asked for things at the shop, she said that she did, but that her father would not always agree to her demands. ‘It all depends … if … err … if it could or not, cos I only can eat good things, not bad things that are in bad things in –’, with ‘good’ things further defined as being ‘good healthy things’. Eva also accepted the need to sample novel foods. She recounted a story of not liking chocolate the first time she ate it. She said: ‘Well … once when I tried chocolate … I … thought that it wasn’t good. But then when I tried it again and I said “mmm not bad”.’ In this family, then, there was high control of the child’s food, albeit this was often covert, and the child appeared to comply with parental norms. At Wave 2, both father and mother had changed jobs and their working hours and income had decreased considerably. The mother had given birth and was at home in the day and worked some weekday evenings in a new job. The au pair had left and they had moved house. The kitchen no longer provided an inviting environment for cooking, nor was Eva’s father still available to do the cooking on account of his changed working pattern. With all these changes and a new baby to look after, Eva’s mother felt they lacked a routine. She felt guilty that she was not feeding her child properly. She compared herself negatively with her mother, saying that she was unhappy with herself for failing to cook from scratch and provide regular meals as her own mother had done.

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We’re less systematic and we eat more as when we feel hungry and sometimes Eva comes back from school and she’s hungry. … She would’ve had something so that will be, you know, 4 o’clock, you know I would get something, whereas before, I think, I would say two years ago we were much more on schedule to have dinner at 6 and we would make effort to cook from scratch. Now we supplement a lot with readymade food or, you know we would have something partially readymade and, you know, then we would have some fresh vegetables but, yeah we’re definitely cutting corners. (Wave 2) Nonetheless Eva’s parents continued actively to encourage Eva to eat well; ‘You have to remind her “what about the other things on your plate?”.’ They also went to lengths to ensure she does not eat too much fat. We have the baked crisps, they’re much lower. I think they’re only like two grams of fat per bag so I kind of feel that the message we give her is still not right because, you know, she’s allowed to have … she at least has packet a day and I’m just a little bit worried that we’re kind of saying to her it’s okay to have a bag of crisps … so maybe we’ll get to the point where we’ll educate her, you know. She’s big enough and we’ll tell okay there are, you know, those things, you know, you can have a little bit more healthy option there as well so, you know. (Wave 2) At Wave 2 there is a different picture with control still being exercised but more overtly. As her mother said, I am sharper with my approach as well, you know, I just say eat everything now, I don’t give her a choice, you know. I just don’t have that mental space because I have two children now, you know, and so I suppose I’m less lenient and more forceful kind of thing. … And it drives me mad because it just feels like such an effort to cook so if I’ve prepared something and she wouldn’t eat it then I think I would, yeah, pull my knives … well not literally. (Wave 2) In this case, parental control over the daughter’s diet was still strong but, in the context of considerable change in the parents’ lives, control was more overtly expressed. In part this was because the mother with a new baby to look after had less time, and had to lower her standards and break routines. She therefore could not scrutinize and subtly influence her daughter’s food practices. Yet at the same time, she had less control over what her daughter ate because she had started school.

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B Children resisting strong parental control In this group there is only one case at Wave 1, which is not surprising given parents’ adult status and their embodied power (age, size) (Valentine 1999: 150), but three cases at Wave 2. All three are girls and, at Wave 2, are of secondary school age. They had just reached secondary school age and two of them were increasingly exercising newly gained autonomy by going out with friends and eating junk food outside the home.

Amelia Amelia is eleven years old and an only child. At Wave 2, she was attending the same private school as at Wave 1. She lives with her two parents in a higherincome white British family in a village on the outskirts of a city. Amelia’s mother works full-time as a lecturer and at Wave 1, her father was a selfemployed salesman. Two years on, Amelia’s father is working in food retail, spending most of his day on the road and returning home between 5.30 and 6.00 p.m. After-school childcare arrangements have consequently changed and Amelia’s mother is now responsible for picking her up. Amelia’s father continues to be the MFP however, doing all of the food shopping and cooking during term-time, as he did two years ago. At Wave 1, neither Amelia’s mother nor father (both joined in the interview) considered Amelia capable of making ‘good’ food choices, saying that ‘in fairness if she had her own choice she wouldn’t be as healthy as she is, would she?’. For her part, Amelia strongly resisted her parents’ control over what she ate. This was attested to by Amelia and by her father, who described giving Amelia little say about what she ate at home. Amelia’s parents also attempted to control what she ate at school, instructing her about what to choose and trying to check what she had eaten. To some extent, Amelia internalized a healthy eating discourse but she also desired ‘unhealthy’ foods saying that she found cakes ‘very tempting’. In completing the timeline activity in which children were asked to show what they had eaten at different point in the last weekday preceding the interview, Amelia said she could not choose what she ate at home on weekdays; except for school, she marked all eating occasions with a red sticker. Amelia rebelled, admitting to lying about what she ate at school, for example, telling her parents she had eaten a roast when she had eaten pasta. She also confessed to stealing cakes and chewing gum from her mother’s handbag, eating them in secret and stuffing the wrappers down the back of the sofa. During the interview, Amelia flaunted her refusal to go along with her parents’ wishes, completing the shopping activity by filling the trolley with contraband: lemonade, bubble-gum, sweets and cakes.

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Her parents’ attempts to ensure their daughter ate a healthy diet were counterproductive (see also Fisher and Birch 1999). At Wave 2, this situation, identified and discussed by her father as well as by Amelia, intensified. Asked how happy he is with Amelia’s diet, her father suggests he would like her to be ‘more adventurous’. As the main cook, he blames himself for this: ‘That’s probably my fault that she doesn’t, because I’m very limited with what I eat as such and I do wish she wasn’t.’ Particularly striking was the fact that parental control and Amelia’s resistance to parental control appeared to have intensified. At Wave 2, Amelia’s father reported that Amelia was stealing money from her mother’s purse. Asked if Amelia spent the money in the local shops her father replied, ‘she wouldn’t be allowed out past the gate anyway’, that is by her parents. Both Amelia and her father reported that she ‘stole’ and ‘gorged’ on sweet foods – taking food such as tinned custard – and hid the evidence. F If there are sweets in the house, she likes those, obviously, and cakes and things and will take those. C I like cake. F Oh, and tins of custard, yeah. C I like custard, custard is nice. F Mmm, she goes to the cupboard and we’ll find the empty tin. C (Laughs) You’ve done behind the sofa … I Do you put the empty tin back in the cupboard? F No, no. C Behind the sofa. F When was it? Sun … was it last … no, last week at some point, the tin lid was in a box of teabags that had only just been opened, but not been put away, the tin was in the bin and the spoon was in the dishwasher. (Wave 2) This gorging on food led Amelia to being hospitalized more than once for bad stomach pains, ‘because she eats rubbish’. As at Wave 1, Amelia’s father feared that he and her mother were restricting Amelia too much. Amelia for her part agreed that children should be encouraged to eat healthily but thought that they should also be allowed some leeway to eat junk food on occasions; children should ‘have a few junk foods but don’t gorge on them like I do’. This case, while apparently extreme, suggests how children can and do resist in the face of strong parental control. As the two other cases in this group at Wave 2 suggest, secondary school bestows greater autonomy on young people to explore independently the outside world with their peers, and young people have their own money to spend, with implications for what they

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buy and eat. Catering systems in secondary school moreover permit, indeed encourage, young people to make their own food (meal) choices.

C Children in control All children in this category are white British. Parents in all but one household are in intermediate or routine occupations. At Wave 1, the average age of children was seven and a half years. Albeit that parents ‘set the agenda’ (Lukes 2005), for example, through determining food availability, relative to other children in the sample children in this group exert a significant amount of control themselves and parents, for their part, acquiesce to some extent. For example, some children refused food unless it was made to their specification or demanded that it be served to their particular standards. For example, Mary’s (aged four and a half at Wave 1) mother said that ‘she’s a bit of a control freak. Sandwiches have to be cut in certain ways.’ Parents and children also mentioned children taking food, for example, buying food and drink with parents’ money when sent to the shop for other items, or using stools to climb up to kitchen cupboards. In this group, children also mentioned ‘pestering’ or persistently asking for foods. For example, Zoe (aged seven at Wave 1) suggested they sometimes went to MacDonald’s because ‘my brother keeps on asking’ and Gemma (aged eight at Wave 1) said ‘I get down on my knees’ and ‘I go on and on and on and on till I get it’. Displaying overt control, Luke (aged nine at Wave 1) said he would ‘swear at [his mother] or something’. Although his mother said this did ‘not work’, she admitted to compromising in order to ‘keep the peace’, buying foods such as Fruit Winders which ‘he thinks are sweets’ and ‘50/50’ bread.

Nicola Nicola was twelve at Wave 2. She lives with her parents, both in professional occupations, in a high-income household in a village on the outskirts of a city. At Wave 1, Nicola was considered ‘fussy’ in her food tastes. Nicola’s mother catered for her tastes, for example, noting that Nicola would only eat lamb chops with melted cheese on top; on another occasion, she mentioned giving Nicola a pizza when they were having a roast. Nicola helped write the food shopping list and when talking about one of her photos taken of their fridge by Nicola at Wave 1 her mother said jokingly, ‘It’s everything you asked me to get … chicken nuggets and all the usual healthy things.’ Her mother when asked how much choice Nicola had in what she ate at home denied giving Nicola much

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choice except in regard to snacks and breakfast. However, she then admitted, ‘I mean I wouldn’t give her anything that she really didn’t like.’ Nicola for her part asserted that she had a lot of choice. Nicola took a photo of the food cupboard featuring tacos, which her mother confirmed she introduced into the household. In addition, at Wave 1 there were several examples, accompanied by photographic evidence, given by Nicola and her mother, of Nicola being actively encouraged to participate in cooking foods. Nicola’s mother also encouraged Nicola to go shopping with her. At school, Nicola mentioned exercising choice in giving up school meals because of the large dollops she was given on her plate even when she had asked for a small portion. At Wave 2, Nicola’s mother still takes account of Nicola’s likes and dislikes when shopping for and planning meals. Her parents only eat foods Nicola does not like if she is out. Nicola moreover has a lot more freedom to exercise choice now that she is at secondary school. Unlike at Wave 1 Nicola has school meals most days. The result is that her mother feels a loss of control, ‘as I say I feel less in control of what she eats now because she … you know she takes money, she goes to the vending machine’. She is not always aware of precisely what Nicola has eaten but says, ‘To be honest, I usually find the wrapper in her pockets, so there wouldn’t be much point in her hiding it.’ But while Nicola’s mother feels less in control she puts her faith in school meal standards: ‘I just feel less in control, but I’d like to think that she’s sensible and that you know school meals have got to go up to certain standards haven’t they? So … she can’t be eating too badly.’ She also mentions that Nicola has more say now when they eat out as she selects from the adult menu. At Wave 2, being at secondary school also increasingly means that Nicola has her own money to spend as she wishes. However, while her mother does attempt to control Nicola’s diet, she also suggests she is ‘a soft touch’, and puts this down to having empathy with her, understanding that sweet and unhealthy foods fulfil an emotional need rather than hunger. ‘I know that I sometimes come home and really need a bar of chocolate or a biscuit or something.’

D Negotiated order All but one child in this group is white British, parents’ occupational statuses vary and the average age of children is seven and a half years at Wave 1. This last category includes cases in which it was difficult to establish a ‘direction’ of control because parents generally gave children what they liked, while children asked for what they were likely to get. Power and control are

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exercised neither overtly nor coercively. We termed this pattern ‘negotiated order’ (Strauss 1978). Parents in this pattern cooked meals that children liked and were likely to eat, to avoid wasted food and emotional energy. Victoria’s mother said she usually gave the children food they were familiar with and this meant ‘I just eat what they eat really; what they like, I eat’ (cf. James, Curtis and Ellis 2009). Furthermore, when selecting foods during shopping or at mealtimes, children in this group tended to ask for what they expected parents to give them; Zoe, for example, described appealing to adult priorities, which in her family involved considerations of cost. In these cases, mothers and fathers did not so much comply with children’s demands, like in pattern C, as engage in a process of co-consumption (Cook 2008b), which was a product of implicit negotiations and understandings.

Charlie Charlie was aged five at Wave 2 and has a younger sibling. His mother was a technologist and his father is a self-employed IT professional and they lived in a city. The couple worked a four-day week at Wave1 in order to ensure that each of them could have one day at home caring for their young children. This is a high-income white British family. At Wave 2, Charlie’s mother had reduced her hours to three-and-a-half days a week after she had become ill, with a consequent fall in income. At Wave 1, Charlie’s mother said they were ‘creatures of habit’ and ‘very little disrupts our routines’. In the context of their busy working lives, she found ‘sticking to what we know’ helpful and took a ‘relaxed’ approach. She tended to give the children food that she knew they would eat: ‘I try to find, cook things that [Charlie] will eat or just accept that he won’t eat it some of the time.’ Although she worried that she ‘should be introducing more variety’, Charlie’s mother was also aware that this lack of innovation helped them manage their busy lives, ‘cos obviously we’ve got a busy life and I tend to stick to the things that I’m sort of used to cooking and eating’. When shopping, she always bought the same products using the ‘favourites’ menu of an online service – ‘We tend to stick to the same food in the week’. She was aware that this tended towards conservatism and thought her children’s diets ‘probably could be a little bit better’ but noted that ‘we’ve all got busy lives and he’s a picky three year old’. While she accepted that time limited her capacity for innovating, she worried that she should be doing more. ‘I think it’s just my mum cooked everything pretty much from scratch so you kind of feel like you should do the same don’t you?’ In this case the ‘negotiated order’ is reproduced in the context of tight time schedules and little time or energy for doing things differently.

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By Wave 2, Charlie had started school. His parents now employ a nanny two days a week who also cooks for the children on those days. We had the following discussion about the nanny’s cooking: M It does, yeah, she … on the days that she is there, she prepares these lovely home-cooked meals which they eat, no trouble at all. I Does she? Really? M When we prepare them, they just reject them … on the Thursday, she cooked too much of this stew and so on the Friday … in fact, I was working from home on Friday, so we had the leftovers of it, Charlie apparently ate it and saying it was the best thing he’d ever eaten, and on the Thursday, refused to eat it when we cooked it and presented it to him on the Friday (laughs). (Wave 2) Charlie’s mother added anxiously, ‘I don’t know what it says about us.’ She is concerned what will happen without the nanny and thinks they will have to ‘get tougher’ and not cook fish fingers and sausages so frequently. Charlie’s mother gives an interesting account of the negotiations and balancing act that she engages in when she does take the children with her to the supermarket, sometimes saying yes to things, for example, Cheerios, adding that she is not sure how the children had learnt about them or where they had eaten them. I Yeah, do they request things, particularly, do they say … so see you doing the shopping and say ‘Could you get so and so?’ M Probably, if they’re with me and they see stuff that they want, then they’ll ask for it. I Yeah, and do they usually get it or – M It depends what it is, like they asked for. About four or five weeks ago we were in and they saw Cheerios and they’ve never eaten them, I have no idea … or maybe they have somewhere, and they instantly wanted them. So I thought well, okay, … you know, a breakfast cereal, they can try them, I didn’t think they’d like them but they did and they’ve had them ever since so … but they ask for other random stuff like massive packets of sweets and I go ‘no’, I don’t take them down the sweet aisle. … Or something that is not too expensive and I think, ‘Oh well, they can try it if it’s not too unhealthy’, then I’d say ‘Yes’ but most of it is just really random stuff that you wouldn’t buy anyway. Despite Charlie’s mother being around more, the balance of control between parents and child in relation to Charlie’s diet has not shifted from the pattern at Wave 1, while interestingly Charlie appears to have altered his food preferences when food is both cooked and served by the nanny.

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Discussion The chapter has described ways in which control of children’s food is negotiated between parents and children. While to some extent all parents exercise forms of control over their children’s eating, as the cases demonstrate there is variation in their practices. Five different patterns were identified. As might be expected, most parents in the study exercised strong control over their child’s eating, especially over young children, while children had little apparent control over the food provided by parents. However, within this pattern, power was exercised covertly as well as overtly, the former involving the inculcation of particular tastes and preferences. There were few cases in the pattern where parent control was strong and likewise few cases where the child exercised considerable control. In the case of Amelia, the child and parents were involved in a struggle, with the child resorting to covert methods to obtain her preferred foods. In the pattern where the child’s control over food appeared stronger than the parent’s, parents generally capitulated to children’s demands. But in a similar number of cases, there was little evidence of the strength or direction of parents’ or children’s power, a pattern we referred to as ‘negotiated order’. This pattern suggests that children’s food consumption needs to be understood in relation to their parents as practices of ‘co-consumption’, undermining the idea that the balance of power necessarily resides with one party. Moreover, as we have shown, in over half of the cases in the two years of the study, the patterns remained remarkably stable. Given the range of children in terms of age and geographical location, the qualitative study did not set out to compare the food practices of households in different social classes or ethnic groups nor to generalize to the wider population. Rather the methodological approach taken was to examine the processes at play and to extrapolate the conditions that apply in particular cases (Brannen and Nilsen 2011). The approaches adopted by parents towards their child’s diet relate to their priorities and to their material, symbolic and emotional resources. Parents, such as Eva’s, who encouraged their children to broaden their preferences were those in the higher socio-economic groups; those more concerned that their child ate what they were given or gave them what they would eat, tended to be in the middle- or lower-income categories. Given rising food prices at the time (Defra 2014: 8), it is not surprising that material resources limit parents’ willingness to ‘experiment’ with children’s food. But, time also mattered (Daly 1996). In the final case example, Charlie’s mother’s experience of ‘time poverty’ (Chapter 4; Hochschild 1989) was important in understanding her ‘laid back’ approach, at least at Wave 1. However, reducing her hours did not appear to have helped to change her son’s food practices. Given that children may need to be offered a new food

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eight to ten times before accepting it (Birch and Marlin 1982), time is one possible prerequisite for those wishing to expand children’s diets. As discussed at the outset, control may not be conceived as such by parents themselves and may be exercised covertly. As Walkerdine and Lucey (1989) have argued, the pseudo-democratic parenting style is normative for middle-class parenting while Wills et al. (2011) found adolescents’ tastes and food intake the subject of parental scrutiny more in middle-class families when compared with working-class families in Scotland. This pattern contrasts with that found in Alisha’s case, which corresponds with patterns of overt authority/obedience identified in British South Asian families by Brannen et al. (1994) and Mayall (2002). Children’s age also seems important. Unsurprisingly, children whose parents exercised the greater balance of control (pattern A) were on average younger than those exerting more control (pattern C). Parents’ control over children’s food also appeared to be informed by, and revealed, different conceptions of the child, in terms of their capabilities and status as idiosyncratic individuals. For example, Amelia’s parents expressed a need to regulate her food, not only at home but also elsewhere, as she was seen as lacking the competence to do this by herself. Eva’s parents saw Eva (a much younger child) as increasingly competent, by contrast, and fostered a sense of ‘self control’, albeit this was somewhat illusory. While Nicola’s mother sought to control Nicola’s diet, she saw herself as a soft touch remembering how it felt to be a teenager and was also aware of ceding control necessitated by her daughter’s gain in autonomy over her diet (as well as other matters) that accompanies the transition to secondary school. While children have gained autonomy at home as their freedom outside home has diminished (Zeiher 2001; Mayall 2002), it is also the case that greater institutionalization of childhood exposes children to a range of new experiences. Comparing the cases of Amelia and Nicola, however, it is clear that this is variable and contingent. Parents’ approaches in some cases appeared to be responsive to children’s behaviours (Coleman 2010), and in some cases such as Charlie’s and Nicola’s, mothers opted for ‘compromise’ foods to avoid conflict. Finally, the analysis demonstrates that while food is subject to and a means of parental control of children, children’s food is also a means by which society disciplines parents. Self-surveillance or regulation arises in the context of discourses of parentalism (Furedi 2002) and maternal blame (Garey and Arendell 2001). Many women reported that their children could eat better, with Charlie’s and Eva’s mother (at Wave 2) comparing themselves to their own mothers and describing feelings of inadequacy and guilt. In contrast, food in some households (cases not discussed here) seemed to be a vehicle for, and indeed a symbol of, freedom from gendered social expectations. It is, however, difficult for women to ‘opt out’ completely (Metcalfe et al. 2009) and

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many mothers ultimately capitulate to children’s food desires. In such cases, children have perhaps replaced the father at the head of the metaphorical table (Dixon and Banwell 2004).

Conclusion Food is political (Lien and Nerlich 2004). Parents are held responsible both for nourishing their children’s bodies and nurturing their developing agency. Food is also embedded in power relations between parents and children. Avoiding the polarized debates about who does, or should, control children’s food in families, this chapter notes the considerable variation between families and that children and parents are engaged in everyday power negotiations about food. In some families, children exercise power in decisions related to food and eating. In others, food is the focus of overt conflict and even occasionally involving strong resistance by children, while in some families control exerted by parents is covert. Patterns of power are stable over time in over half of the families studied. While some parents seek to act in their children’s best interests by instilling preferences for those foods they consider healthy and appropriate, the market also has an interest in inculcating tastes in children. Even though children may be regarded as sophisticated and critical consumers (e.g. Buckingham 2007), in the context of parents’ busy lives and a highly marketized food environment, child-led approaches to parenting are likely to result in children’s diets being high in ‘children’s foods’ that, in the UK at least, are typically highly processed or designated ‘junk’ (James 2008). Parents may seek to moderate or avoid the effects of the market on children’s diets, but parental control can be counterproductive. For one, not all parents have the strength and means with which to resist children’s exploitation by commercial interests. Stronger regulation of the food industry, rather than of parents, may be more important in supporting parents to do the best for their children and to protect children’s health and well-being.

6 How does children’s food play out across the different spaces of their lives?

W

hile parents, usually mothers, are generally held accountable for their children’s diets (Maher, Fraser and Wright 2010), the home is only one space in which children eat. Children’s food practices play out across a number of contexts, including home, school and care (Punch et al. 2010; Punch, McIntosh and Emond 2011). Accounts given by the children in the qualitative sample at Wave 2 describe the different foods eaten in a number of places over the course of a routine weekday. For example: Hayley’s (aged 11) food diary of her last weekday: Breakfast: Coco puffs (no drink as has milk with cereal) or Readybrek. Mid-morning: bought herself from own money apple juice and milkshake from school ‘tuckshop’ – ‘small ones’ Packed lunch: marmite sandwich, water and cheese puffs After school: sweets Supper: pizza and chips (oven) Dylan’s’ (aged 11) food diary of his weekday diet Breakfast: Shreddies, milk ‘and nothing else’; sometimes has toast and marmite. Drinks water Packed lunch: Strawberry jam sandwiches; grapes; chocolate biscuit (Penguin) and crisps; always has the same After-school club: ‘selections of chicken nuggets, fish fingers and – I chose chicken nuggets and chips. Orange juice for pudding and rocket jelly’ Evening school disco: ‘Sweets, packet of crisps and lemonade and cherry cola’

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Little sociological research has focused on the way in which food and eating habits play out across different places. Rather research has concentrated on children’s food practices within particular places, for example, at school and at home. In this chapter, we take a different approach in that we consider what children eat in the number of different spaces they inhabit in the course of their everyday lives, how their food practices are shaped by and shape these spaces and how food practices in these different places interact. This approach sheds greater light on the food practices of children of employed parents during parents’ working week than a focus on one particular setting can do, and take account of children’s agency as well as that of parents and other actors.

Children’s food practices across everyday spaces Spaces reproduce and are constituted through behavioural norms – the written and unwritten rules for what are considered to be appropriate social practices (Harvey 1990). Food practices are constrained but not determined by these norms so that food may be a means of resistance and way of appropriating space (and time). Moreover, ‘space and interactions are constituted, in part, through networks of power’ (Ibid: 2). For example, the school dining hall is a site of adult surveillance and control of children but may also provide spaces for resistance and the enactment of children’s agency (Brannen and Storey 1998; Gustafsson 2002). The question of where people eat within the home is also infused with issues of power and status and plays an important role in the reproduction of social relations. As Chapter 5 discusses, the dinner table may be a site of the reproduction of ‘family’, but can also be viewed as a locus of control and surveillance wherein gender and generation are reproduced and resisted (Greishaber 1997; Wilk 2010) not only through foods served and eaten but through where, and on what, people are seated (for example, the father’s chair may have arms whereas others do not). Not eating ‘at the table’ is also moralized, and may be linked to customs and religious conventions as well as resources, that is, the space available. To eat on the floor may be considered a ‘blessing’ for some Muslim families, while to eat on the sofa may be regarded as improper by some sections of society. To eat alone at home or refuse to eat with others may signify independence, difference and indifference to the ‘family’. Increasingly people also eat ‘between’ places, ‘on the go’. While this practice has received some attention from those concerned with ‘gastroanomie’ (Fischler 1979) associated with the so-called individualization and

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de-synchronization of eating in industrialized societies (e.g. Southerton, Díaz-Méndez and Warde 2012), research has tended to draw on concepts of ‘destructuration’ (Mestdag 2005) rather than conceptualizing the ‘new’ social spaces and places that produce and are produced by such practices. Exceptions in the field of childhood studies include those which consider children’s journeys between school and home, for example, (Knight 2013) and eating ‘beyond the school gates’ (Wills et al. 2014). Travel between settings, such studies suggest, may provide one of the few opportunities for children to be outside of (tightly) adult-controlled social space (Knight 2013); eating sweets and other ‘unhealthy’ snacks on the way home from school may be regarded not only as an exploitation of the opportunity for expressing autonomy, but also as a means by which children occupy or claim space and time as their own. When children (and adults) move between spaces they may take their food practices – and actual foods – with them, as is the case with eating fish and chips on “foreign holidays” or packed lunches at work and school. Alternatively, they may eat differently in different places, or the same food may be used in different ways or have a different meaning. Eating takeaway chicken is acceptable in KFC, but to eat it on a bus is to flout explicit and implicit rules. Ben and Jerry’s ice cream is appropriately eaten from the tub on the sofa in front of the TV, but not from the tub at the table, and eating a Sunday roast on a blanket in the park is almost “unthinkable”. Places proscribe the possible to some degree. However, practices developed in different places do influence and intersect with one another. For example, children may eat meals in childcare settings that they refuse to eat at home, demand novel foods at home which they have tried at school or suddenly stop eating a particular food at home because they see their nursery friends not liking it. Acknowledging that children eat in different places, the study examined how parents viewed and enacted responsibility for feeding children when they ate elsewhere, and what (if anything) they considered to be the influence of different settings on children’s food practices and preferences. The following section therefore describes the different forms of childcare that the study families used and hence the opportunities for young children to eat in places other than at home. The next section examines the themes identified in the data analysis concerning how food and eating in different contexts related to one another. At Wave 1, parents were asked about their knowledge of what children ate in other settings, how much information they received, and whether they perceived children’s food in other settings to influence the foods they asked for and were served at home; and their goals and strategies for negotiating children’s diets across contexts and the different priorities they were attempting to meet. At Wave 1, children were also asked about food and eating at home and elsewhere. At Wave 2, both parents and children

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were asked about changes in settings attended and foods eaten. The last section focuses on three cases that explore children’s eating practices in different settings and how mothers seek to mediate these (or not), with a particular focus on any changes that take place over time. While children are also important mediators of their own lives, the evidence drawn upon in this chapter is largely from parents.

Which spaces do children inhabit? At Wave 1, of the forty-seven target children (aged two to ten years) thirty-one were of primary school age and sixteen were of preschool age. Just over half (19/31) of the school-age children were in some type of childcare while their parents were at work compared to three-quarters (12/16) of the preschool children (Table 6.1). This is unsurprising since mothers typically fit their work around school hours (Lewis 2009). School-aged children not in out-of-school childcare had one parent available before and after school to look after them. For the four preschool-age children where childcare was not needed, the mother’s working hours, usually part-time, dovetailed with her partner’s. At Wave 2, nineteen of the thirty-six children had made the transition to nursery, primary or secondary school. Three of the children in the sample were of preschool age; twenty-seven were at primary school and six were now at secondary school. In terms of childcare usage, all three of the preschool-age children at Wave 2 were in childcare while just under half (14/33) of the schoolaged children were in childcare in addition to school. Of these only one was of secondary school age (Table 6.1). Nineteen children were not in any form of childcare at Wave 2. At Wave 1, children attended a range of settings with nine children in more than one type of care. For preschool children at Wave 1, nurseries and grandparents were the most common type of care (Table 6.2). For

Table 6.1  Childcare use of children in three age groups (preschool, primary and secondary) at Waves 1 and 2 In childcare at Wave 1

In childcare at Wave 2

Preschool age

12

3

Primary school age

19

13

Secondary school age Total

0

1

31/47

17/36

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Table 6.2  Type of childcare setting of the study children at Waves 1 and 2 Childcare type

Wave 1

Wave 2

Breakfast club

6

3

After-school club

9

4

Grandparents

10

3

Friends

2

2

Childminder

2

1

Nanny

2

2

Nursery

9

3

NB. At Wave 1, nine children were in more than one type of childcare. At Wave 2 only one child was in more than one type of childcare.

school-aged children, breakfast clubs and after-school clubs were the norm. Of those children in more than one type of childcare at Wave 1, most were of preschool age, with the most common combination being nursery and grandparents. Far fewer children were in nursery or being cared for by grandparents at Wave 2 than at Wave 1, which is understandable given that the children were older. Most childcare settings provided food for the children, the exception being in some cases where children were cared for informally (by friends and relatives), or by a nanny or au pair, where parents sometimes provided food. In school, roughly half the children at Wave 1 ate food provided by the setting (school meals) while the other half took packed lunches: thirteen of the thirtytwo children attending school always had school meals, fifteen always had packed lunch and four had meals on some days and packed lunches on others.

Children’s food and eating across contexts Punch, McIntosh and Emond (2011: 5) suggest that ‘food practices and meanings that have been instilled in children and adults are carried on into other relationships and social contexts’ but that ‘more needs to be known about this process and how best it can be managed and explored’. In this section, we describe the relationship between what children ate at home and what they ate in other settings. We examine how eating plays out across different contexts, exploring the different patterns which emerge in relation to the relationship between foods eaten at home and foods eaten elsewhere, in terms of children’s overall diets.

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We identified six different patterns from the analysis demonstrating how children’s food practices in places other than home play out in relation to practices at home. We found that children’s food in other settings can: a) Mirror food practices at home b) Complement food practices at home c) Supplement food practices at home d) Influence food preferences at home e) Substitute for and/or compensate for food practices at home f) Diminish food practices at home

a) Children’s food practices in other places mirror food practices at home Some children ate the same foods in different settings. This was the case when parents provided food or provided clear instructions about the food to be given to their children. For example, in Owen’s case, his grandparents who looked after him gave him virtually the same as that provided by his parents. It was also the case that where children’s repertoires and preferences were very narrow, this meant that they ate the same things at home as elsewhere. Jade switched from packed lunch to a school meal when she started secondary school. She did so because the meals were similar to those she ate at home (pizza and chips). In some cases, children were given a packed lunch because parents thought that they would not eat their school meal although, as discussed later, cost reasons were also important though not necessarily foregrounded by parents. In some cases, children preferred to eat the kind of food they ate at home. At Wave 1, Alisha, an eight-year-old of a middle-income Asian family began having school meals but, due to her mother’s concern that she did not eat them, soon switched to packed lunch. As a lunchtime supervisor at her daughter’s school, Alisha’s mother had an inside view of school dinners. ‘They have variety … it’s nice balanced food. But it’s just our [Indian] children I think are so fussy. The taste I think, I don’t know why.’ Alisha tried to explain why she disliked the food at school. ‘It’s not like my kind of favourite. And I don’t really like – they prepare like English food obviously, and I like more my Indian food – home food.’ As discussed in the previous chapter, at Wave 2 when she was eleven, Alisha and her mother were following the same practice. However, Alisha had extended her tastes to include many Western dishes that her mother made for her at home.

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b) Food practices in other places and at home complement one another For some mothers, the school meal relieved them of the need to make a ‘proper’ meal in the evening. In these cases, it was taken for granted that children needed only one ‘hot’ meal a day. The issue of ‘balance’ was important here as elsewhere and, in these instances, incorporated balancing the ‘raw’ and the ‘cooked’ (Lévi-Strauss 1964). This strategy also enabled mothers to reconcile the competing demands of feeding children and earning an income and the conditions of time and energy scarcity involved. For example, one mother of two primary school-aged children paid for them to have a hot meal at school on the days she was working night shifts so that she could provide a cold ‘tea’ before she went out to work, suggesting that school meal provision can be helpful for working parents. The mother of Megan (aged four at Wave 1) stressed the importance of knowing her daughter had a ‘proper meal’, so relieving her of any guilt for not cooking an evening meal. She said, ‘if she does come home and has a sandwich or some super noodles I’m not as bothered because I know that she’s had her vegetables and such and such at school.’ William’s (age four at Wave 1) mother also said she felt justified giving the children ‘cheese and biscuits’ in the evening as they had ‘a good meal at lunchtime’. Olivia’s (age eight at Wave 1) father also suggested that school meals made their busy lives more manageable: ‘Although it’s expensive it means that we don’t have to get up that extra half an hour early [to make sandwiches].’

c) Foods eaten elsewhere supplement foods eaten at home Foods provided by nurseries and schools were viewed by a number of parents as extending the range of foods in children’s diet, for example, by providing them with novel foods, especially those from different ethnic cuisines, which were not usually served at home. The foods eaten elsewhere were thus seen to expand children’s culinary repertoires. For example, Mary’s mother said that at preschool Mary (aged four and a half at Wave 1) had to take packed lunch but would only eat cheese sandwiches, so when she began school they had decided she should have school meals to ‘broaden her tastes’. Harvey’s (aged two and a half at Wave 1) mother said that his nursery introduced the children to foods from ‘other countries’, including ‘things one would not expect a child to eat’. Sarah’s (aged four and a half at Wave 1) mother also said she was pleased her daughter ate a variety of foods at nursery, such as seafood risotto, ‘You know three or four days a week she is experimenting and getting a really varied diet. … She eats better there than she does here.’

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A number of parents of school-aged children also talked about school meals introducing children to new food tastes. Some black and minority ethnic parents were keen to encourage their children to eat more ‘English’ foods and suggested school meals were important. For example, Joshua’s mother cooked Ghanaian food at home such as ‘Jolof, fufu and yam’, but thought it important the children were exposed to ‘English’ foods at school meals because they ‘might go on a school trip’ without alternatives. Joshua’s elder brother, Paul (aged ten at Wave 1), suggested he had indeed developed a liking for such foods and drew sausage, egg and chicken for one of his ‘favourite meals’ at Wave 1. Yasmin’s (aged ten at Wave 1) mother was also concerned to extend Yasmin’s repertoire from vegetarian Indian food cooked by her grandmother at home to ‘Western’ dishes, that Yasmin had photographed at Wave 1. Sophia’s mother, black African, cooked Nigerian food at home and said a main reason she wanted Sophia, (aged seven at Wave 1) to eat school meals was to give her ‘more variety’.

d) Foods eaten elsewhere influence children’s tastes about what they want to eat at home When food interventions are made in schools and childcare settings, the hope (although not always the outcome) is often that foods will not only supplement children’s diets but influence their preferences for, and ultimately consumption of, healthier or more varied foods at home. Clearly such effects are dependent on a number of factors, not least parents’ attitudes towards facilitating (or not) children’s innovation and agency (Valentine 1999; O’Connell and Brannen 2014), parents’ competences and their temporal and economic resources. In some cases, what children were eating in childcare influenced what they were prepared to eat at home. For example, Alfie’s mother considered that childcare and school food policy changes had influenced what her children preferred and welcomed these. While her older children would not eat fruit, she said, the younger ones asked for it, as they were provided with fruit and water, instead of biscuits and juice, in playgroup that her elder children were given. Likewise, Lily’s mother said Lily (aged four at Wave 1) was given fruit at nursery, which encouraged her to eat it at home. Some parents also reported that meals served in school influenced children’s eating at home. We had the following discussion with the mother of Joy, aged two at Wave 1: M Sometimes as well she has eaten things at nursery that she won’t eat at home. Like she went through a phase where, erm, she wouldn’t eat

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spaghetti at home. … And then at nursery one day they said ‘Oh she had spaghetti Bolognese’. Right then, well ‘you’re having it at home now then, I And then would she eat it at home after? M Yeah. However, peer influence in childcare did not always translate into what parents saw as ‘positive’ dietary changes at home. For example, Sarah’s mother said that although her daughter (aged four and a half at Wave 1) used to drink water at home, the influence of friends at nursery meant she had started asking for squash instead of water, ‘I’d like her to have water, but she’s going through a phase at the moment, ’cos her best friend at nursery, I don’t know why but they’ve completely swapped roles. She always was fine with water and now she gets “no, I need juice”.’ Charlie’s mother also said that her three-year-old son would not eat lasagne at home but did at nursery; she thought this might be because he was using more energy ‘dashing around’ or could be due to ‘peer pressure’.

e) Food practices in other spaces substitute and/or compensate for what is eaten at home In a few cases, food eaten in other settings was the main dietary intake for children and largely supplanted foods eaten at home, on working days at least. For example, Lily ate three meals a day in nursery on the days she attended. Rishab, aged six at Wave 1, ate three meals outside home on weekdays – at breakfast club, school lunch and at after-school club. His mother thought he had a balanced diet there and commented, ‘And I know that my son eats most of what is on his plate.’ In some cases, foods eaten in other care settings appeared to compensate for a limited diet or less than ideal food practices at home. For example, at home, Lily’s (aged four at Wave 1) diet consisted largely of processed foods with lots of tinned and heated up food as her mother did little cooking. Lily’s mother felt that the food provided at nursery made her child’s diet ‘more varied’. However, at Wave 2, Lily’s mother said that she had tried giving Lily the same foods at home but that Lily had refused to eat them saying that they tasted different from the foods provided at school. Some parents and children also mentioned that childcare provided opportunities for socialization into commensality. For example, Harvey’s (aged two at Wave 1) mother said that since her son was having lots of regular ‘sit down’ meals with other children at nursery, and was ‘learning social skills there’ it was less important to do this at home. One seven-year-old girl, Zoe, also took photographs at Wave 1 of the breakfast club counter where she ate

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before school and also of herself sitting on the floor to eat at home. She said that she preferred eating on tables at breakfast club compared with on the floor as she did at home as it was ‘cleaner’.

f) Foods eaten elsewhere diminish overall diet and food eaten at home The last pattern relates to cases in which foods eaten in other contexts were seen to diminish children’s overall diets. For example, Eva’s parents suggested the poor foods on offer at her nursery and the nursery’s lack of adherence to their wishes about their daughter’s food were among the reasons they moved her to another nursery. An issue mentioned by a number of parents concerned grandparent care. Some parents mentioned grandparents ‘treating’ children with sweet and unhealthy foods. For example, Aaron’s grandparents were said to give him Fruit Shoots, which he did not have at home, and Joy’s grandfather was reported to feed her ice cream and also biscuits he had collected from hotels on business trips. Parents who were reliant on the goodwill of their relatives felt powerless to insist they did not give treats to their children (Skinner and Finch 2006). Finally, when children had the opportunity to exercise freedom in other settings to select what they ate, in particular associated with the way meal settings were organized, notably cafeterias in secondary schools, and where rules and expectations were different, sometimes children reported making less healthy food choices that contrasted with the foods served and on offer at home. Having described some overall patterns and themes concerning the ways in which food practices interacted across contexts, we now focus upon three cases to show how the settings children ate in and their eating practices changed over time, specifically in relation to the transitions to primary and secondary school, and how parents responded to their children’s eating practices.

Changing patterns of eating across space over time Christopher – the transition to primary school This is a case of a five year old whose transition from nursery to primary school involved parents becoming concerned about what he is eating at school and increasing their monitoring and intervention of the boy’s food practices.

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Christopher is a white British five-year-old boy (at Wave 2) who lives with his two elder sisters, mother and father in a high-income household in a large village close to a city in the Midlands. As at Wave 1, his mother works four days a week during term-time as a senior school administrator and his father is a management accountant. At Wave 1, Christopher’s parents were very relaxed about what he ate at nursery, where the food was provided. As his mother explained, she had known the manager for some time and her older children had attended the same nursery. She believed a wide variety of food was served, that it was generally nutritious, and that Christopher ate it. She thought that the range of food on offer expanded her children’s tastes, suggesting that their readiness to sample new foods could be explained by their exposure to them in their day care setting. I Lovely. Do you try new things quite often or do you tend to stick to the same things? It sounds like they’re quite good at trying things. M Yeah, well they’ve all been to nursery so they’ve always eaten nursery food as well. I Right yeah. M Which is quite a varied diet, they do curry and corned beef hash, and they have all sorts of things at nursery. (Wave 1) While Christopher’s mother did not think that the food on offer was always of particularly high quality, knowing the manager of the nursery, whose children also attended, she reasoned that ‘if it was good enough for her children it is good enough for mine’. I Oh brilliant. And have you ever had any concerns about what the nursery provides or? M Only occasionally if I see the erm, I don’t know whether it’s a snob factor you see the blue striped yoghurts erm, and the quality of the sausages, you know I don’t know necessarily what they’re eating. But I work on the basis that a lot of the staff send their children there. And the owner’s got three children like we have, similar ages so hers, if its good enough for her children and the staff’s children then it’s good enough for my children. (Wave 1) Christopher’s mother’s approach to what Christopher ate at nursery was one of putting trust in the care-provider. She adopted a laid back approach. Christopher’s father suggested they were concerned not to be ‘too draconian’ in enforcing rules about food and eating at home and granted their children considerable latitude in helping themselves to snacks and choosing what to

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eat for some meals at home as well as at school. At Wave 2 Christopher had started attending the same primary school as one of his sisters, while the elder sister had started secondary school. Christopher’s primary-school-aged sister had stopped regularly eating school meals. She explained that this was since she found a hair in her dinner and because she was not keen on the food provided by the new cook, an account confirmed by her mother. Christopher also took a packed lunch to school most days. His mother said that this was due to increasing peer influence, ‘So, of course, Christopher … a lot of his friends … he’s turned into a bit of a sheep, he started school and I said “Are you having dinners?” “I want sandwiches because Daniel has sandwiches.”’ (Wave 2) However, when Christopher’s mother gave him sandwiches, he did not eat them: ‘I give him a sandwich and it comes home.’ Recently she had begun to give him a wrap instead, in addition to other foods including some fruit, such as grapes and a chocolate roll. However, it appeared Christopher was only eating the chocolate roll. Christopher’s father suggested this was because Christopher preferred to play than to eat: ‘He didn’t eat all his wrap the other day and we found out that it’s because he wanted to play football in the pen so we (inaudible) and he got found out, he got told off for that.’ Christopher’s mother emphasized the different eating context of the school compared to the nursery, suggesting Christopher was used to a more structured setting at nursery, where mealtimes were supervised and what was eaten was monitored and controlled by staff. By contrast at primary school there was more freedom, at least for those children eating packed lunches: ‘I think with the dinners, they supervise them, with the sandwiches, they don’t make them eat everything. … You just sit down, open your lunchbox and take whatever you want first.’ Christopher’s parents’ concern was such that Christopher’s father had visited the school to ask that they monitor what Christopher was eating and ensure he ate his wrap before he went out to play. Although Christopher’s mother would have preferred that her children had school lunches, they stressed the financial and emotional savings to be made in acceding to Christopher’s preference for packed lunches – ‘But we’re saving a bit of money, I’d rather do that than come in moaning every day.’ (Wave 2) As Elizabeth Murphy, Parker and Phipps (1998) have suggested, feeding children is dependent on ‘the task at hand’. In this case, saving emotional energy and sustaining a happy family environment took priority over nutrition (see Chapter 5). With the transition to primary school, Christopher’s mother’s approach was to take a step back and not to take on the school meals system but to accede to her son’s desire to be like his friend and take a packed lunch to school. She sought at the same time to monitor the situation.

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Luke – the transition to secondary school At Wave 2, this eleven-year-old boy had just made the transition to secondary school. His parents have given him the freedom to go to the school canteen for lunch but worked with him and the school to help him to keep to a budget. Luke is a white British boy who lives with his parents in a high-income household in a suburb of a new town in the South East of England. As at Wave 1, his father works as a regional manager in the leisure industry. His mother has now stopped working as a school meals supervisor due to a longterm illness. At Wave 1, Luke travelled to his primary school by bus and attended an after-school club two days per week. He often ate his breakfast, toast or a Pop Tart, on the bus on the way to school, as he did not like to wake up early and was usually in a rush. At school, he ate packed lunches every day except for Friday, when there were chips on the menu. Foods eaten at home and school reflected each other; at school, as at home, Luke was only given foods that he liked to eat. His mother’s main priority was avoiding conflict in part because of (at this stage undiagnosed) behavioural issues. She gave Luke mainly processed foods in his packed lunch because this is what he liked to eat. As mentioned in Chapter 5, in order to meet her own priorities while deferring to Luke’s food preferences she also used ‘compromise’ foods marketed to appeal to children’s tastes for bland, sweet foods as well as to parents’ health concerns: ‘Actually, it’s better for him but he doesn’t realise it’s better for him.’ A  I’ll try and put a piece of fruit in but sometimes he doesn’t eat sometimes he does. In the supermarket they do like a fruit, it looks like a sweet but it’s got fruit juices in it. It’s like a … R Oh right, a Fruit Winder A That’s it, yeah. They look like sweets but it’s got fruit juices in it, and they’re supposed to be for snack boxes it says on it. He quite likes cheese straws and those little bits of chicken – the Fridge Raider things, he has those. Little box of raisins. The cheese, he likes a bit of cheese square. What do you call it? Not the triangle but the other things, bit of cheese wrapped up. He might have a few crackers, maybe a biscuit like a Kit Kat or something. So that sort of, so rather than being erm, he has lots of little bits rather than it being a sandwich (Wave 1). At the after-school club, Luke usually ate a snack such as a wrap and a piece of fruit. Luke’s mother was confident that the food provided at his after-school club was ‘healthy’ as this is what it said ‘on the advertising’. In addition, one of the carers often told her what Luke had eaten, so she felt she knew enough

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about what foods were on offer and how much Luke consumed. When he got home, Luke also ate an evening meal. The foods eaten at after-school club thus supplemented rather than supplanted eating at home although, given he had a less healthy snack on the days he came straight home from school (such as a bag of crisps or some biscuits), the food at after-school club to some extent compensated for less healthy snacking on other days. At Wave 2, Luke had made the transition to secondary school which his father said ‘he’s found quite difficult’. In addition, more was known about his special educational and behavioural needs. The school has recognized, ‘he’s still got some learning difficulties, but he hasn’t actually been diagnosed … he’s in mainstream school but he can’t quite keep up.’ As a result of this, Luke’s parents and the school were working together closely regarding Luke’s education. Luke has had to learn to moderate his spending given his new-found freedom to have school meals and to choose what he eats at secondary school. The school has an online school meals system with fingerprint technology, which means that Luke had considerable latitude in making his selection. This was problematic at first, his father said, but the school had worked with them to help Luke. I think he has like a credit card or something. There’s some mechanism at the other end, so he has school dinners every day … apart from he’s got absolutely no sense of spending money. … So initially in the first term he was sort of having a panini and something for a snack at break, and then another panini and a pizza for lunch. And he was sort of like blowing … he was blowing like a tenner or 12 quid a day on school dinners, so (his mother) had to work with the school to cap his daily spending on it, so that we don’t go bankrupt. (Wave 2) Overall, then, at Wave 2 as at Wave 1, Luke had a good deal of choice about what he ate at school and this mirrored the situation at home, where conflict avoidance remained the priority. As his father noted, ‘Again it’s probably not worth the um, worth the battle.’ As in the previous case, a harmonious home environment took priority. Parental mediation of the difficulties left Luke fairly free to decide what he ate at school but they have sought to restrict his overspending.

Sarah – transition to primary school In this case, there had been a number of changes since Wave 1, which had implications for the child’s eating in different settings, including home.

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These included changes to the mother’s working hours and changes within the family as well as transitions for the child, from day nursery to primary school. Sarah is a five-and-a-half-year-old white British girl, who lives with her mother in a low-income household in a small market town in a rural area of central England. At Wave 1, Sarah’s mother was working four days a week, including a weekend day, as a beauty therapist. She had very recently separated from her partner and life was in her words ‘erratic’. Reflecting this, food and eating at home were fairly unstructured. Sarah’s mother was disinterested in food (though reported ‘comfort eating’), there were no fixed mealtimes and Sarah mainly ate snacks rather than meals. ‘Oh it’s awful. We literally just pick and graze all day … erm … and I just go with the flow, she’s never had a routine at all.’ Sarah’s mother felt cooking alone and for one was ‘soulless’ and didn’t cook often, saying ‘I’m not very good at cooking on my own I’ve noticed.’ Instead of meals, Sarah helped herself to snacks from the kitchen. ‘She just helps herself to the fridge anytime she likes.’ Her mother expanded thus, ‘Usually I tend to keep most things on the surface there because she [can] reach them. She just pushes her chair over and gets whatever she likes. Erm … so yeah that’s usually where I keep the nuts the raisins or the Ryvita or anything else that’s fun.’ (Wave 1) Three days a week when her mother was working, however, Sarah attended nursery and was given all her meals and snacks there. Sarah’s mother was very pleased because it gave Sarah a more structured eating pattern than she had at home, saying it ‘teaches her to eat at meal times’. She expanded, ‘Because of our erratic life style she’s a grazer, so she’ll graze. She’ll graze on quite good things, but she’s not really into meal times. So a proper working day for me is actually really important, because it actually teaches her to eat at meal times. So that’s good.’ (Wave 1) In addition to providing regular mealtimes, attending nursery meant that Sarah was consuming what was perceived as a healthy diet consisting of three ‘good’ meals plus snacks. She’ll have toast for breakfast. I think they have a mid morning snack, maybe bread sticks or some fruit and juice and now the lunchtime meal is really good, they just have a real wide variety of meals. The cook prepares them fresh and everything so … she’s a big meal then. Snack, puddings and then her tea it’s really early, it’s about 4, but it’s just a crumpet and fruit or something. (Wave 1) Further, Sarah’s mother suggested that at nursery Sarah was introduced to a wider variety of foods than she would otherwise have had. ‘You know, three or four days a week she is experimenting and getting a really varied diet. ... She

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eats better there than she does here.’ Sarah’s diet intake and food practices at nursery thus both substituted and compensated for those at home and broadened her dietary repertoire. The weekends when Sarah was cared for by her maternal grandmother were a different story however. Sarah’s grandmother drank Pepsi ‘all day’ and treated Sarah with unhealthy foods such as crisps and sweets. Sarah’s mother perceived her own mother to be a bad influence and was unhappy about the foods her daughter ate there. However, she felt relatively powerless to do much about it, since she depended on this source of childcare. She also saw grandparents ‘treating’ children with unhealthy foods as ‘normal’ and part of grandparenting. ‘They’re a real soft touch. Well this is what nan and grandad’s houses are for, we don’t say no here’ (Knight, O’Connell and Brannen 2014). The informal childcare provided by Sarah’s grandmother was thus regarded as diminishing Sarah’s overall diet. At Wave 2 much has changed. In the first place, Sarah’s mother has reduced her working hours. She now works two weekdays and no longer works at weekends, with the consequence that Sarah’s grandmother does not provide regular childcare. Sarah has also started primary school. She also attends a childminder’s two evenings a week when her mother is at work. There have also been changes in the household. Since Wave 1, Sarah’s mother has a new partner who has ‘his own place’ but is considered a member of the household since he regularly stays overnight and eats with Sarah and her mother most days. Sarah’s eating in different contexts has also changed quite dramatically. Whereas at Wave 1 she was eating three meals a day in her nursery, she is now only eating one meal at school on weekday lunchtimes, plus a midmorning snack of fruit. Since Sarah’s childminder does not provide meals, Sarah is getting much more of her food intake at home. However, eating at home has also changed. While at Wave 1, there were no structured mealtimes, the presence of Sarah’s mother’s boyfriend means that the family is eating meals in the evenings. Sarah’s mother reported that she made more effort to eat proper meals when in a relationship. She said there was more structure to their eating than when she was single. While Sarah’s mother is still not enthusiastic about food, Sarah’s partner does a lot of the cooking and she does the washing/clearing up. ‘We eat better since [partner] came on the scene, cos he’s a bit of a cook.’ Furthermore, her partner has introduced Sarah to new foods and she is consequently eating a more varied diet at home. For example, Sarah’s mother says that her partner has introduced Sarah to boiled eggs with ‘soldiers’ which she now loves; she herself did not give this to her daughter in the past because she lacked confidence about giving her a runny egg. In addition, whereas Sarah would not eat potato ‘in any form’ at Wave 1, she now ate

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chips and roast potatoes and they ate a roast dinner together most Sundays at her partner’s father’s house. Sarah’s mother was very enthusiastic about the structure and foods provided by Sarah’s nursery at Wave 1 and is equally positive about school meals at Wave 2. She says that the quality and range of foods that Sarah gets at school is very good and that there is a lot of variety in the foods served: ‘I wish I ate as well. … Very varied, like fish pie and spaghetti bolognaise.’ She reported that Sarah had said on occasion that she would like to have a packed lunch at school so that she could eat with some of the older girls; but Sarah’s mother explained to her daughter that school dinners were better. She did say recently ‘I wish I had packed lunch, because then I could sit with some bigger girls’. And she didn’t mention the food, and I just said ‘Oh I’m so rubbish, you’ll have the most rubbish meal ever, and you don’t like sandwiches, so … you’re having hot dinners.’ And I did also talk to her about the fact that it’s good that she has all the different ranges of food, and she does seem to understand that that’s quite important. (Wave 2) In this sense, there is continuity between Waves 1 and 2 in that school meals, like the foods provided at nursery, continue to expand the repertoire of foods that Sarah eats. There have been some changes to snacking since Wave 1 when Sarah was eating sweets most days, although Sarah still eats snacks given to her by the childminder rather than her grandmother. Two years ago, when she was working more hours Sarah’s mother would buy sweets every time she picked Sarah up from nursery. As she said, ‘There’s not a day that goes by that she doesn’t eat sweets after nursery.’ However, at Wave 2, mum has stopped this. She reported that Sarah might have a snack on the way from school to her childminder’s, or at the childminder’s house, but she had tea at home. Sarah reported that she did indeed eat snacks at the childminder’s, including sweets, crisp and biscuits, C Before when I’ve first gone to her house a few times, we had butter on bread. I Ooh, that sounds yummy. C And then crisps. I Crisps. C And sweets. I Okay. C And now biscuits. (Wave 2) Snacking at home has changed however in that whereas Sarah could help herself if she was hungry, this no longer applies. Her mother reported that,

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after Sarah ate her way through an entire chocolate cake that was in the fridge, Sarah is no longer allowed to help herself without asking first, ‘So that was closed, there was no open fridge policy anymore.’ A strong continuity between the two waves is that the food budget remains tight and Sarah’s mother relies on reduced price foods. Despite, at Wave 2, having received an increase in tax credits, and some financial contribution from her partner, Sarah’s mother has experienced a reduction in her pay, an increase in the number of mouths to feed in the household, and rising bills and food prices. As Sarah says, one result is that she can only buy treats like olives and nuts ‘if they’re in the reduced section!’. In this case, Sarah’s diet improved at home as well outside it. However this pattern is not a result of maternal moderation or intervention so much as a confluence of changes that have taken place independently in each context. Sarah has started school where she is having school lunch and thereby having a good diet just as she had experienced in nursery and a better diet than when she had been looked after by her grandmother. At home, meals have improved as a result of her mother’s new partner who does a lot of the cooking. It appears however that in the context of the latter change, the mother has also become stricter in regulating her daughter’s access to snacks.

Discussion Parents are expected to take moral responsibility for their children’s diets (Coveney 2006) despite rising maternal employment, childcare usage and eating in school and childcare. Much has been made of the potential of school and childcare settings for improving children’s diets, but little research has examined what they contribute to children’s overall food intake, how eating in different places intersects with what children eat at home and the issues parents face in seeking to manage or mediate children’s dietary intake across the different contexts in which they eat. This chapter has examined these issues. It is widely accepted that children’s experience in one context influences their behaviour and experience in another (Bronfenbrenner 1979). However, what goes on in one setting is not necessarily carried over (Christensen 2004: 382). Rather, as we have demonstrated, food practices in one context may or may not translate to or be transformed by another context. In some cases, children’s food practices crossed the boundaries between spaces and were complementary. What children ate in other places made up for the limited range of foods eaten at home, for example, through the consumption of novel foods or relieving working parents of the need to make a ‘proper’ meal in the evening. Some parents recognized that school and

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childcare settings can compensate for less than ideal food practices at home, for example, by introducing children to regular mealtimes and eating at the table. In other instances, foods eaten in other places influenced what children ate at home, for example, by encouraging them to eat fruit, although they had refused it when at home. By contrast, in some cases, parents were not happy with the food provided elsewhere and felt it diminished children’s overall diets. Despite the expectation that parents take responsibility for their children’s food intake, they cannot totally control it, both because of institutional governance (or lack of it) and because children, especially as they move through the educational system (from primary to secondary school), are expected to exercise control over their lives and what they consume (see Chapters 5 and 7). In the three cases, we discussed the ways in which, over time, parents sought to manage and moderate what children ate in the spaces children occupy outside the home. In the first case of Christopher, we have shown how when Christopher moved from nursery to primary school the possibilities changed along with the compromises that his mother faced. In this situation, Christopher chose to take a packed lunch to school to be like his friend and his mother acceded to this despite the fact that it was clear he was not eating the healthy items provided. In Liam’s case, when he started secondary school, in accordance with normative expectations, Liam was allowed by his parents to move from packed lunch to eating in the school canteen. However, in this case his parents intervened not in order to influence what their son was eating but to check his excessive expenditure. In the third case of Sarah, the move to primary school had made little difference to her diet, which was reported to be varied at nursery. This pattern was not a result of maternal moderation or intervention so much as a confluence of changes that took place independently in each context. Sarah had started school where she was having school lunch and thereby continuing to eat a varied diet as she had formerly done at nursery. At home, meals had improved as her mother’s new partner did a lot of the cooking. It appears, however, that in the context of the latter change in her own life, Sarah’s mother had also become stricter about regulating her daughter’s access to snacks.

Conclusion In this chapter, we have explored how eating in different spaces intersects with children’s eating at home, the ways in which mothers sought to control or moderate children’s eating across settings and the degree to which they were able to do so, as well as how these played out in particular cases over time.

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Given social expectations of parents to take moral and actual responsibility for children’s health and diets, and the public debate about the importance of good nutrition in childhood, many mothers were understandably concerned to ensure that their children were eating well. The recognition that children’s health is negotiated and reproduced across a range of settings that also change as children age and move up the educational system means that parents should not be viewed as the chief or sole influence on children’s diets but rather as ‘very important mediators’ (Christensen 2004: 383). Constraints on parental moderation of what their children were eating elsewhere include the information available to parents, from children themselves and educators and carers, as well as the growing autonomy of children. Especially in the transition to secondary school, the cafeteria system to which children become exposed allows them to spend money and make food choices from the available options. The next chapter examines these issues in further detail. It reflects on the ways in which changes in food and eating are related to a variety of different temporalities: the rhythms of everyday life and the phases relating to the life course and changes in adults’ and children’s lives. It identifies the key points at which dietary changes happen in the study families’ lives, the extent to which these are expected or unexpected, and how these are understood in the context of dietary change and continuity.

7 Changing families, changing food: How do children’s diets change over time?

I

n this final chapter of the analysis, we focus on the shifting contexts of children’s lives in the time span of the study that may have contributed to changes in families’ and children’s eating. We begin by discussing the theoretical frameworks that we have employed. We then discuss the analytical challenges that assessing dietary change in a qualitative study entails. We then turn to some cases and analyse the overall patterns of changes and continuities and the particular transitions and events in children’s lives that evoked change.

How to make sense of change and continuity in children’s lives In order to make sense of change and continuity in the lives and eating practices of the children and their families in the two-year period of the study, we have drawn on two theoretical frameworks or bodies of theory. Changes over time in what children eat may be understood in relation to concepts from lifespan and life course perspectives (Devine 2005). Human development and ageing are lifelong processes. As children grow older they experience lifespan changes. Elder, Johnson and Crosnoe (2006) see the life course perspective as a theoretical orientation1 that views the life course as consisting of agegraded patterns that are embedded in social institutions and history. The life course perspective draws upon an interconnected set of concepts. One

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important concept concerns social transitions when an individual moves from one life course phase to another. Transitions are shaped by institutional structures and normative prescriptions concerning what is expected in a particular society at a particular time when an individual achieves a particular age. For example, most pupils in England move to primary school at age four or five and secondary school at age eleven,2 so these ages can be taken as transition points. Trajectory or career is another key concept and refers to the sequencing of a life course (Elder 1985). More specifically a life course is made up of trajectories in different social domains; for example, those that are related to education, health and household composition. These trajectories are shaped in the context of the circumstances and resources available as individuals move from one life course phase to another, with long-term implications for the course of the life as a whole. Agency is a further key concept in which individuals are conceptualized as social actors who construct their own life course trajectories through the choices they make and the actions they take within the opportunities and constraints of history and social circumstances (Elder, Johnson and Crosnoe 2006). The developmental antecedents and consequences of life course transitions, events and behavioural patterns vary according to their timing in a person’s life. Time, as in historical time and time scheduling, is therefore central to this perspective. Moreover, life course theory recognizes that lives are lived interdependently and socio-historical influences are expressed through the network of ‘linked lives’ (Elder, Johnson and Crosnoe 2006). Looking at the changes in the lives of children in working families, we can see the relevance of these concepts. Children mature as they grow older and their behaviour changes. They experience scheduled institutional transitions, for example, moving to primary or secondary school, with possible consequential changes in practices. For example, food practices change when children are exposed to new foods when they start school and children may also be influenced by their peers’ food preferences (Feunekes et al. 1998). Conversely, the transitions in children’s lives may impact on children’s eating practices at home (Chapters 5 and 6). The birth of a new baby can also occasion family diet changes (Devine, Bove and Olson 2000) with consequences for children. Children also experience non-scheduled transitions – for example, their parents changing their hours of work (Moen 2003) or their employment and related changes to do with moving area, school or house. Again, these may involve behavioural changes for children. Significant life events may also occur, notably parental separation and parental unemployment that may have direct and/or indirect consequences for children’s living conditions and dietary behaviour (Wethington and Johnson-Askew 2009). Whether parents and children perceived these changes as ‘critical moments’ (Holland and Thomson 2009) is perhaps too premature to say.

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Indeed the methodology adopted was intended to cover the mundane aspects of eating at both waves of the study and for us as analysts to compare food practices at each wave, while giving interviewees the opportunity to suggest what changed in the two years of the study, both in respect of their lives more generally and the children’s diet more particularly. For children however, they had little recollection of the Wave 1 interviews and, only in cases where they had taken photographs of foods they ate at Wave 1, were they able to observe and assess changes that had taken place by Wave 2. The second theoretical framework relates to understanding normality or ‘ordinary’ patterns of living – in this case, the daily food practices of the families (Warde 2005; De Vault 1991) and the trajectories of children’s diet practices in particular. Practices constitute the mundane habits of everyday life; as conceptualized by David Morgan, family practices are what families ‘do’ (Morgan 2011). While new practices may be accounted for, they may not be open to reflection and may be outside individual control. Practice theory as proposed by Shove, Panzar and Watson (2012) focuses on the particularities of what may be conceived of as family practices, so that cooking is a practice that is distinct from shopping. The approach moreover decentres social actors whereby individuals are seen as situated at the intersection of practices and relationships embedded in the taken-for-granted everyday: ‘Practices that are often hidden from view; part of an everyday and mundane world frequently so taken for granted that their meaning becomes lost’ (Punch et al. 2010: 227). Family habitus and the particular food practices, including the shopping, cooking and eating which constitute them, are the contexts in which changes in children’s diets do or do not occur. Some households have an established pattern of cooking practices centred on fresh vegetables and dishes cooked from scratch. In other households, established food practices involve using more processed or convenience foods or ‘fast’ foods from takeaways. In some families, regular food practices comprise cooking and eating the same meal, while in others the established food practice involves tailoring meals to an individual child’s tastes and/or the use of foods marketed at children. Such cuisines and practices may shape not only what children are expected to eat but also what foods are provided in the household. Some family food practices give greater agency to the child in determining their diet while others do not. Therefore an important dimension to examine in understanding change in children’s diets is to focus on parental power and children’s resistance to regulation as we set out to do in Chapter 5. Practice theory is also useful for studying changes as well as continuities in practices. As Halkier, Katz-Gerro and Martens (2011: 6) suggest, it offers a framework ‘for gaining insight into how social change occurs’. In this view practices are understood as a nexus of materials, meanings and competences

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that recruit children (and adults) into new practices such as ‘healthy eating’ (Halkier and Jensen 2011), ‘snacking’ (Twine 2015) or ‘cooking with Bimby3’ (Truninger 2011), as they encounter and engage with 2015 new technologies, foods and social situations. Change needs also to be understood in relation to different conceptions and experiences of temporality. The passing of time is experienced in diverse and changing ways (Daly 1996). Families experience the cyclical patterns of work and rest and diurnal and seasonal rhythms. Children experience time in similar ways to other members of the family but also in different ways. Because so much happens to children in terms of their development and institutional transitions in a few years, what to adults appears a short time span may seem like a very long time to children.

How diet change/quality was assessed: Analytic challenges One aim of the study was to examine how children’s diets and food practices changed over time and the conditions in which they did or did not do so. The longitudinal design afforded this opportunity but also raised particular challenges with respect to assessing diet quality and change. In qualitative longitudinal research there are, as in all research designs, many analytic challenges. One aspect in particular is relevant here, that is, the lack of analytic closure and the way examining change over a relatively short time (two years) brings to the forefront the contingent and unstable nature of our interpretation of the data (McLeod and Thomson 2009). A second challenge is that in this study, we did not measure how much children ate, as would be the purpose of a diary method. Rather we focused upon children’s diets and food practices within the context of family food practices that encompass a wide range of other practices or bundles of practices (Shove, Panzar and Watson 2012); these included sourcing food, cooking and catering for individual/family tastes as well as eating. However the analysis presented in this chapter focuses upon cases – that is children and their parents. A third challenge was therefore to bring into our assessment of changes in children’s eating practices over time the accounts of both mothers and children. The material we collected included photographs of food taken by children when they participated in the photo elicitation exercise. A further point to note is that in categorizing changes in the overall quality of children’s diets we decided to exclude consumption of snacks as they were a common practice among all the children in the study, irrespective of food eaten at mealtimes, and made assessments of change more complex.

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The evidence we draw upon here is therefore diverse and, because of the qualitative nature of the inquiry, not always consistently covered in each interview. The data are drawn from different sources – from children and parents – and are both visual and interview data. The interview data are based on a range of interview questions. Data include: ●●

Reports of change in children’s diet (Wave 2)

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Reports of what children ate at meals on a recent working day and weekend day (both waves)

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Foods children said they liked/disliked (both waves)

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Children’s photographs of food (in some cases) (both waves)

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Parents’ evaluations of the quality/healthiness of diet of the target child (both waves)

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Reports about food eaten elsewhere and parental and child satisfaction with this (both waves)

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Responses to direct questions to children and parents about foods they had stopped or started eating (both waves)

In assessing the quality of children’s diets at each wave we noted whether the foods that children ate for main meals were said to include plenty of fruit and vegetables. Diets that depended mainly upon highly processed foods were assessed as of poorer quality. With one exception, there was considerable correspondence between mothers’ own assessments of the ‘healthiness’ of children’s diets and those of the researchers. We categorized the children’s diets as ‘poor’, ‘mixed/intermediate’ and ‘good’. This categorization of individual children’s diet quality, based on perceptions of parents and children, is inevitably crude. In some cases the evidence is more overwhelming than in others where it is less clear-cut. This crude categorization also underplays the unevenness and nuanced character of diet change. Therefore our assessments need to be seen as falling along a continuum rather than belonging to clear categories as suggested by the nomenclature we have used.

Did children’s diets change over time? As we can see in Table 7.1, most children’s diets were reported to have stayed more or less the same over the course of the study (26/36 versus 10/36). The largest group are those classified as ‘good’ at both waves (n = 17). Three children remained in the ‘poor’ category and six in the ‘mixed/intermediate’

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Table 7.1  Change and continuity in perceptions of children’s diets Wave 1 to Wave 2 Change Improved

No change

Deteriorating

Poor

Mixed/intermediate

Good

8

3

6

17

2 N = 36

category. Two children’s diets, previously said to be poor, were reported to have ‘improved’, as a consequence of which we have placed them in the mixed/intermediate category. A substantial number (n = 8) were classed as having diets that were described as ‘deteriorating’ at Wave 2.

Changes in children’s lives Figure 7.1 is a model for understanding changes and continuities in children’s diets and suggests the directions and moderators of change. In some cases children’s diet changed in the context of their own life course transitions or changes that were related to parents’ life course events. But life course changes and events were by no means necessary conditions for dietary change as the cases described suggest. Figure 7.1 illustrates that the children in the study were subject to a variety of possible influences that could have also had an impact on their diets. The most

Parental life events incl. employment

Household food practices

Child food practices

Child development (life span)

Child (institutional) transitions

Perceived quality of child’s diet

Figure 7.1  Analytic framework: influences on perceived quality of children’s diet.

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obvious change between the two waves was maturational development as the children got older. The two-year period of the study represents a significant portion of children’s lives. Developmental change led in some cases to the expansion of children’s tastes and also to changes in parents’ food practices, for example, to feeding young children later in the evening so that they participated in eating the same dish cooked for the whole family. Maturational change is also associated with social transitions (Figure 7.1). Nineteen children experienced social transitions related to age milestones and institutional structures – transitions to nursery (two children), to primary school (ten children), to secondary school (seven children). Starting primary school exposed children to different foods and directly affected what children ate at home in some cases and the quality of their diets (see Alex, below). On the other hand, some transitions such as the transition to secondary school gave children more autonomy in selecting what they ate at school and led to poorer choices in terms of diet quality both at home and at school (Chapter 6). In addition, children stopped or started attending after-school clubs or breakfast clubs or went to different types of childcare (n = 4). In one household, two older siblings had left home and in a few others changes in older siblings’ extra-curricular activities had affected household routines. All of these rarely influenced children’s diets directly but in some cases indirectly as is shown in the case of Jade (below). The majority of children (n = 30) experienced changes related to their parents’ employment. These changes included changing jobs, length of the parent’s working week, their pattern of hours and income level. Such changes in some cases affected the organization of childcare, which parent did the cooking and in a few cases the quality of the food. In another case, a mother who worked longer hours left more cooking to the nanny. In addition, thirteen children experienced at least one significant parental life course transition in the course of the study (Figure 7.1), including moving house (n = 6), the separation of their mother from her partner or the arrival of a new partner (n = 4), pregnancy or giving birth (n = 3), parental illness (one case) and building work in the home (n = 3). In some households, established family food practices and cuisines were important in understanding continuities in the family’s diets and food practices, for example, reflecting a family cuisine’s reliance on core foods cooked from scratch and centred on vegetables (as in Hindu families), or the practice of basing meals on pre-prepared, fast and processed foods. The task of understanding change is not only about identifying the contexts and conditions that can disrupt and transform food practices but also about understanding continuities. In analysing the following cases, the aim is to explicate the processes of both change and continuity. We have included cases in which there is more continuity than change in the quality of children’s diet,

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and cases where there has been an obvious change. In some cases, life course changes are significant to understanding dietary change and in others, less so. In the following analysis of particular cases we take a life course perspective and present cases of children sequentially at different life course phases. In the first two cases Alex and Joshua started primary school in the course of the study. The next case of Jasmine is of a girl approaching the transition to secondary school while the final case is of a girl who is in her third year of secondary school. The penultimate case is of a young girl who has recently started primary school; in this case changes are understood in relation to changes in her parents’ employment and the birth of a sibling. As the case analysis shows, maturational and life course change intersects with other life events that shape children’s lives. However these may or may not be significant influences upon children’s diets.

Starting school: From a poor to a better diet This six-year-old’s diet was influenced directly and indirectly by the transition to primary school. School meals directly improved Alex’s diet at school and indirectly at home. Starting school has resulted in Alex trying new foods at school. At Wave 2, Alex is a six-year-old white British boy who lives in a higherincome household with his younger brother, aged three, his mother, a teacher, and his father, a police officer, in a small coastal town in the north of England. In the two years since we first met the family, Alex’s father had been promoted resulting in a change to his weekend shift pattern; and the family had also added a new extension to their house. In that time, Alex had also started primary school. At Wave 1, Alex’s mother reported him as ‘picky’; she was concerned that he did not eat many vegetables and to compensate for this she gave him plenty of fruit. Asked at Wave 2 whether she is happy with Alex’s diet, his mother said she was generally happy because he is no longer fussy and eats a wide range of foods, I’m actually quite happy at the minute with his diet because it’s ... when he was little I used to worry about him all the time because he was such a very fussy eater. But now I’ve got no worries at all really because he eats a really good variety of foods. Alex’s mother puts this improvement down to his starting school and to school dinners. Before he started, the parents of reception children were invited to come and have lunch with them, ‘so we got to see what the lunches were

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like, and they were really nice’. At Wave 2, Alex is said to love school dinners and to have broadened his tastes at home as a result, He loves it. His favourite meal at school is battered cod and chips. But he had chicken curry on Friday he said, and he said that was fab because they got naan bread as well … before he went to school he was quite a picky eater. Actually he was a very picky eater. And he would never have dreamt of eating curry at home, and it used to be a battle for me really. But now he’s eating things like chicken curry at school and … yeah he’s trying out lots of new things, so it’s been a good thing for him having school meals. Alex reported his favourite foods to be sausages, chicken dippers and chicken curry. At school he prefers salmon nibbles, and he also said that he now eats pizza. Alex confirmed at Wave 2 that he has now got the taste for things he used not to like and that it is because he is ‘older’. His mother fleshed out this picture further: ‘He never used to like pasta when he was little, but now he really likes pasta.’ She added that Alex now eats vegetables. Later in the interview Alex said he did not like tomatoes nor his mother’s surprise stew. Further, Alex’s mother is considering cooking dishes like chicken curry for the family because Alex likes it. Hence we can see how a child’s new tastes can innovate what is cooked at home. Asked if she wanted to add anything, Alex’s mother was very considered in her response and referred to Alex being more mature; she noted that things were easier now that the children were a little older, because the family could sit down to eat together, and also because the children could eat foods that the parents were eating – they could not manage to chew before, for example, foods like lamb chops.

Starting school: A continuing good diet The diet of Joshua – the next boy considered in this study – remained good in the context of a low household income and multiple changes both affecting his life and that of his family, including the separation of his parents, his mother starting work, moving house and schools, and the birth of a new sibling. At Wave 2, Joshua is six and lives with his Ghanaian mother and three siblings in a low-income household. Since Wave 1, Joshua had started school and has school dinners like his siblings. Also since Wave 1, Joshua’s mother had a new baby but had separated from Joshua’s father. She and her children had moved into a privately rented house that she finds very expensive to heat and was seeking to be rehoused by the council. The children had also

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changed schools, which their mother said was because their first school lacked discipline. In addition, Joshua’s mother had also started a part-time evening job as a cleaner. At Wave 1, Joshua’s mother considered the family diet to be healthy. She said she liked to make sure the children ate well at home because she didn’t want them to eat ‘outside food’, giving the example of ‘Burger King’. However, she did want them, she said, to have school dinners because it exposed them to English food that she did not cook at home. Instead she stuck to the core foods and dishes of a Ghanaian cuisine. At Wave 2, her account was very similar, ‘I’m very happy that any food like I cook in the house, or yeah what I can say … yeah every food I don’t throw food away. They eat nicely.’ As at Wave 1, the children are given no choice; they are all expected to eat what is provided at home. The mother’s cooking practices involve cooking from scratch and cooking Ghanaian dishes consisting of rice with meat and tomatoes and onions. She says that she leaves out the other vegetables as some of the children will not eat them. She says she does not buy convenience foods (she seemed not to understand the term snacks) and only gives her children what she regards as treats like ice cream very occasionally. She is keen to justify this practice not in monetary terms. For example, she said that the children only get ice cream if the weather is hot. Explaining why she only buys digestive or rich tea biscuits, she said that this was because the children liked only these varieties. Joshua’s mother gave examples of particular meals. The day before the Wave 2 interview was a school holiday and they had ‘roast chicken in the oven and joloff rice and [I] will put rest of chicken on the top’. On school nights before she goes out to work to her cleaning job, Joshua’s mother prepares Ghanaian soup with onion, pepper, tomato and beef and fufu (wheat flour with water) or rice. She insisted she was giving them ‘variety’: ‘I always change the food.’ Sometimes on Fridays she buys burger and pizza from Morrisons. However, she also notes that she cannot cook the dishes they have at school like ‘scotthes pie, lasagne, meat balls, quiche’, suggesting that her children would like her to do so. Because they were complaining some day, say that ‘Oh can we eat the meat balls, can we eat the lasagne, can we eat this?’ Or what do you call … quiche or something … I’d say no, you can’t eat it. When you come back home you have to eat the different food. Yeah. You can’t eat the school food at the same in the house. (Wave 2) Joshua’s mother’s account of family eating patterns also relates to her established practice of following Ghanaian methods of child rearing. She takes pride in displaying to others that her children eat Ghanaian food ‘like, if we are

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going to a party’. Food is an important signifier of her child rearing practices, but also there are financial constraints as Joshua’s mother has to keep to a very strict budget. Joshua’s mother has a strong belief in ‘teaching’ children, explaining that child rearing in her country is different: ‘You try to teach them.’ ‘I know they are young but I pray to God they will listen to me when they are in the high school.’ As can be seen from this next quote, her narrative is about teaching her children to live and manage within the constraints of limited resources: ‘I’m always telling them … listen to what mum is telling you. You are not rich. I’m okay. Sometimes I used to talk to them. They do understand me “You shouldn’t compare yourself with others”.’ Joshua’s mother then went on to talk about how children should value what they are given and that if they don’t ‘take good care of it’ she won’t buy ‘it’ again. Asked whether the children request particular foods when they go shopping Joshua’s mother says she accedes ‘only once in a while’, saying, ‘This is the money that I have’, and that she usually just ignores their requests. ‘But sometimes when you go to the shop I said “I have my money, this is the money I have, (inaudible) I’m not going to buy anything.” Sometimes their faces, they are not happy but I just ignore.’ (Wave 2) This picture of constraint and limited choice is confirmed by Joshua. Asked if his mother insists on him eating his meal even if he does not like it, he gave examples but was quick also to say that it is good to be told to eat up the food: ‘It’s more healthy.’ There are hints in Joshua’s Wave 2 interview that since starting school his temporal horizons are changing as far as food is concerned – there is the implication that he would like to expand his tastes. He described school meals as ‘amazing because they give you like healthy food’. Asked a question about the influence of TV adverts on his food preferences, he mentions the chain Subway that has opened locally; he says he would like to go there. His comments and explanation for why the family does not go there convey a sense of his mother’s approach to child rearing and of his life more generally, C No I’ve never been to Subway before. I Haven’t you? Would you like to go? C Yes. I Why? C To see how it’s like. I Yes. C We don’t really go out often. I No. C So sometimes we just stay, cos it’s too cold for us and we’ll catch a cold.

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The start of secondary school: A deteriorating diet The diet of the next girl in this study deteriorated since recently starting secondary school. Yasmin no longer eats breakfast and is unwilling to eat either Indian or Western foods that are served at home. She frequently refuses to eat with the family and goes to her room. Her mother is concerned about her diet and her thinness. Yasmin is aged twelve, the daughter of an Indian Hindu father and a Pakistani mother. She has two younger siblings and also lives with her paternal grandmother. A middle-income family, her mother works part-time in the service industry and has slightly increased her hours in the period of the study. Yasmin is now at secondary school. She makes her own way to and from school with friends who live locally. As a consequence Yasmin is now out of the house much longer. She leaves home earlier and gets home later, mainly because she does so many after-school activities. At Wave 1, Yasmin’s mother considered Yasmin as having a healthy diet because she ate both vegetarian Indian food and Western food that included meat and which the mother was keen to introduce to her children. Yasmin’s grandmother cooked all the Indian vegetarian dishes and always made them from fresh ingredients. The children ate with her before the parents. Later in the evening, the children had some fruit that the grandmother sliced up. At Wave 1, Yasmin took part in the photo elicitation exercise. She took lots of pictures of school dinners – macaroni cheese, fruit, bread and cake, and the school salad bar, one of herself eating garlic bread. Her interview was full of references to foods and dishes that she liked. At Wave 2, the picture was very different. No longer did the children eat with the grandmother; the whole family ate together at about 6.30 p.m. The grandmother no longer did most of the cooking and the mother cooked Western types of food frequently. This change was largely driven by the fact that Yasmin arrived home at about the same time as her father. However, Yasmin’s mother says Yasmin has developed a habit of wanting to take her food up to her room to eat alone and skipping breakfast despite her parents trying to discourage this. Yasmin referred to a changing experience about feeling hungry – she never feels hungry in the mornings. As a result, Yasmin’s mother was increasingly concerned that Yasmin was underweight. I’m not really happy (with her diet) because I would prefer her to have like breakfast, I think it’s really important that she has like breakfast, probably

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eating less junk food, you know, she likes to eat a lot of biscuits and crisps and stuff like that. And if she –, like if she doesn’t like something, she’ll just say ‘Oh, you know, I’ll just have a packet of crisps’. (Wave 2) At Yasmin’s school, pupils had to have school dinners. However, Yasmin takes some snacks from home such as ‘crisps or a Twix bar’, and says she sometimes has a main meal at school but not if she disliked what was on offer. Her parents said they no longer asked Yasmin what she ate at school. Her mother noted that on occasion Yasmin made the excuse that certain dishes ran out by the time she got to the front of the queue so she was not able to have what she wanted. Yasmin’s mother thought that these changes in Yasmin’s diet were driven by her peer group at secondary school. Indeed the start of secondary school changed the scheduling of Yasmin’s day but also how Yasmin experienced it. Yasmin appears to be resisting the new temporal pattern of eating together as a family and also is rejecting the traditional Indian food that she previously enjoyed, suggesting that the onset of adolescence, sustained by the move to secondary school, may be instigating Yasmin’s increased desire to exercise autonomy and resistance. However, Yasmin is not alone among her siblings in changing her food tastes. They too, according to the mother, want more variety now that they are exposed to different types of food at school and when they eat out. I think it’s because like they eat out, because they have a different –, sort of like school dinners and stuff and then you have a different variety and then they just think ‘oh, okay, there’s just not just Indian food we can eat’ like so and so, um, like, you know ‘If I go to tea, she cooks this’ so I think they just, you know, like what they did used to like, they’ve like changed so they say ‘No, we don’t want that anymore’. (Wave 2) Yasmin’s mother is herself sympathetic to Yasmin’s increased preference for Western food as she is not Hindu. On the other hand, Yasmin’s mother is increasingly concerned about her daughter as she considers her (and looked to the interviewer also) to be very thin.

Multiple transitions: A deteriorating diet This girl’s diet was extremely good at Wave 1. However, by Wave 2 it had deteriorated in the context of multiple parental life course transitions including

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the girl starting school, the birth of a new baby, moving house, childcare changes, changes in both parents’ employment (jobs, hours and reduced pay). Eva was four at Wave 1 and lived with her parents (both graduates) and an au pair in a high-income household on a coastal town in the South East. At Wave 2, Eva has a new sibling, who is nine months old. At Wave 2, both parents have changed jobs resulting in a considerable reduction in their income. Her father, who mostly worked from home at Wave 1, now does so no longer and often works long hours in the evenings. Eva’s mother works fewer hours than at Wave 1, also often in the evenings. In addition, the family has moved home, from a rented to an owner-.occupied house with a mortgage. Childcare arrangements have also changed; at Wave 1, the family had a live-in au pair, but at Wave 2, Eva’s mother is the main carer with some help from a babysitter when she works in the evenings. At Wave 2, Eva’s father is no longer responsible for cooking and only makes dinner about once a month mainly because he does not work at home and often returns home late. As a result, Eva’s mother does almost all of the foodwork. As Eva’s mother said: ‘Everything has changed, upside down.’ At Wave 1, Eva had a very healthy diet; meals were generally cooked from scratch with locally sourced and organic ingredients and eaten together as a family. There was an emphasis on fruit and vegetables and few ‘treats’. Eva accepted and internalized a discourse of healthy eating. There was little conflict over her dietary intake that was heavily controlled, though not overtly, by her parents (Chapter 5). Eva’s mother explains how at Wave 2 having a new baby and the fact that her husband is out in the evenings mean that she has to ‘juggle’ the children with the cooking. Moreover, they are no longer disciplined by the need to cater for the au pair while the kitchen in their new house is ‘just less conducive to food preparation’ and there is less storage space. As a result, meals are ‘less systematic’ now, meaning Eva eats when she is hungry and they rarely eat together. As a result Eva’s mother considers she ‘cuts corners’; there is more use of convenience and takeaway foods. And we eat more as when we feel hungry and sometimes Eva comes back from school and she’s hungry. … You know, 4 o’clock, you know, I would get something, whereas before, I think, I would say two years ago we were much more on schedule to have dinner at 6 and we would make effort to cook from scratch. Now we supplement a lot with readymade food or, you know we would have something partially readymade and, you know, then we would have some fresh vegetables but, yeah we’re definitely cutting corners. (Wave 2)

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Eva’s father agrees. Moreover Eva’s mother feels guilty about not working as she sees ‘properly’ because she feels she is failing in her responsibility as a mother. I feel extremely guilty. I’m feeling pressure to make that effort whenever I do. I probably wouldn’t even make that effort but I think the pressure that … this is the, you know, early start in their life and this is what they deserve. (Wave 2) Indeed, asked how happy she is with Eva’s diet, Eva’s mother replies that she feels inadequate when she compares herself with her own mother. ‘My worry is that I don’t do as well for my daughter as my mother did for me. Nevertheless, I’m living in the hope this will change in the future.’ Things appear to be no better at weekends. Since the arrival of the new baby, they are ‘catching up’ on sleep, work and time to themselves. At the weekend, one parent will take both the children to do an activity so that the other parent can get some rest. It’s a puzzle. I think it’s everything – I think the fact that we as a unit we are more divided in terms of what we do and, you know, where we find each other, so [husband] is out all the time, Eva is out. I’m with [the baby] and I breastfeed. … (Wave 2) The house move also has made life and eating difficult. While they were having work done on the house, they had to go out to eat and quite often went to McDonald’s, something they would never have considered doing at Wave 1 and about which they are considerably embarrassed. Yet, although at Wave 2 they buy more processed foods, they still maintain some standards and draw the line at certain processed and microwavable foods for the children. Eva’s father said, I think we still hold a bit of a line because we don’t have a microwave … it’s a slippery slope. … So we don’t get these meals where you kind of stick it in the microwave and it’s all, you know like TV meals. So what we get in terms of convenience foods, I think the main things are pizza … it will be like the fish, breaded fish, or fish fingers, or like veggie burgers, or veggie sausage rolls. (Wave 2) Furthermore, the family has not compromised on organic fruit and vegetables, which they continue to have delivered and are enthusiastic about. Another

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continuity concerned averseness to food waste arising in Eva’s mother’s case from her childhood. So if she notices something is going to go off she will make it into something (for example, strawberries into cupcakes) and if it is not eaten she gives it away to neighbours or to the school. Eva is now at school and eats school meals, which her father would like to be able to regulate more strongly, half-jokingly suggesting that he was ‘advocating for a webcam in the canteen’. It also emerged that Eva has gone off a number of fruits. Eva’s father said, ‘She’s very fickle and, you know, easily distracted.’ (Wave 2) Although Eva’s parents see this as a time of change, they hope to go back into their former routines; they are concerned, though, that this may not happen, especially with a new baby, the demands of work and a house unfinished – ‘We’re behind on everything.’ Eva’s mother commented, We’re kind of dealing with things as they come day by day on a daily basis from week to week and for some reason, you know, I’m just thinking, you know that we will figure things out and, you know, when [the baby] maybe gets a little bit older maybe he’ll go to nursery, you know, I’ll get back to work, I suppose. … I don’t know but, yeah, I’m kind of, in my head, in my head, this is not a permanent situation. … This is a temporary thing that we’re going through. (Wave 2)

Mother’s new boyfriend and becoming a teenager: From a poor to a good diet The diet of the next girl in this study markedly improved between Waves 1 and 2. The change took place in the context of her becoming a teenager and the introduction of a different food culture by her mother having a new boyfriend. Aged fourteen at Wave 2, Jade is the youngest in the family and lives with her mother in a white British, low-income household on the outskirts of a city on the English south coast. Her mother works part-time as an administrator and is home by the time Jade arrives from school. In the course of the study Jade’s two older siblings have left home and her mother has started a new relationship. Her mother, who is the main food provider, has never enjoyed cooking and says that she is not particularly interested in food. Jade was said to be eating a poor diet at Wave 1. Jade said she was a very fussy eater and preferred takeaways. Her mother considered her diet to be ‘dreadful’.

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Because we have to push to make sure she eats something nutritious. But no, her diet is dreadful, absolutely dreadful. And then when we do … she does get a nutritious meal she’ll pick and eat around it. Cos there’s only one vegetable she’ll eat and that’s broccoli. (Wave 1) At Wave 2 Jade and her mother both attested to a transformation in Jade’s diet. It used to be so stressful just to try and get her to eat anything that was even the remotest bit healthy, you know, because she just wouldn’t eat it, just would not eat it. … And she’s never been a big chunky child, but what she was putting in her was just your hydrogenous … and just rubbish, absolute rubbish. But it was her that changed and started to want to try new things and she’d ask me to go and buy some salmon, and I’d say ‘Are you sure?’ (laughs) You know ‘Of course I’ll get it, but are you sure?’ Because that’s not even my influence, because I don’t touch salmon, I’ve never particularly liked salmon. Jade’s own account of why her diet has changed concerns her recent transition to teenage or as Jade also notes moving from Year seven (aged twelve) to Year nine (aged fourteen). In Year 7, I wouldn’t really have touched salad or anything like that and then I think it must have been like the beginning of Year 9 that I start, I just was like I’ve got to start eating more healthy … but now like some things that I said I hated are now my favorite meals and stuff like that. (Wave 2) Jade referred to the bodily advantages of her improved diet, which in turn reinforces her new food practices. ‘I was about to say my hair has grown better condition but maybe not, um yeah, just … and like I would say my teeth feel better as well like since I’ve taken more care of them, they feel better.’ Jade’s mother also confirms this, adding that Jade’s new interest in her appearance is to do with ‘boys’, a comment that Jade steadfastly ignored. Jade’s mother additionally explains the transformation in relation to contextual changes – a life course transition in her own life, the major influence being her boyfriend whose influence extends beyond dietary matters. At Wave 1, she was just recovering from a divorce while at Wave 2 having a new (Scandinavian) boyfriend (he does not live with her) has made her feel more relaxed. As Jade says, ‘And I think mummy’s a lot more chilled out (laughs).’ The boyfriend’s food habits appear to have made a great impact on Jade’s tastes and the family’s diet. He is very particular about food quality. Also,

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the family now eats out more often because he takes them to expensive restaurants and as a consequence of which Jade says, ‘I think I’ve got a very expensive taste in food.’ Jade’s mother has this to say: I would say [boyfriend has had the main influence on Jade’s diet] because he is Scandinavian and we’ve been over [there] and they eat totally different to how we eat and it’s all rye bread and it’s all fresh fish … their foods are totally different, even from red cabbage and the hot dogs that they do that they’ve got all the onions and all the trimmings, they’re very healthy eaters. … He’s very meticulous and they stick to a pattern as well, they always have their breakfast, they always have their lunch, they always have their evening meals, you know, it’s constant. (Wave 2) Jade talks about her changing tastes. For example, she says that whereas in the past she would have only eaten takeaways she no longer likes them – a practice confirmed by her mother. Even when she is out with her friends and they buy junk food, Jade says she resists it. However, there are continuities also. Jade still says she dislikes foods with particular textures and she continues to eat biscuits and cakes. Jade no longer eats in the school canteen and says she now usually waits until she gets home to eat. Her mother gives a slightly different story. Yeah well I always put on the side she’ll have a packet of crisps and she’ll have her Brevita cereal bars. She’ll have her Trackers, which are the cereal bars … and I’ll leave Orios, she likes the packs of Orio biscuits because they’re handy like for lunch boxes, and I’ll leave it on the side and she’ll just take the bits she wants. (Wave 2) Although Jade’s mother still dislikes cooking and is still not very interested in food, her cooking practices have in part changed to accommodate Jade’s expanded tastes, albeit she manages on a tight budget. She mentioned making dishes liked by her daughter, sometimes making something different for herself that is more to her taste, but also that her daughter tries to encourage her to try new foods.

Discussion In the analysis of the cases presented, we focused on dietary changes which were in part brought about in the context of a child’s transition to primary school, the move to secondary school, a household going through multiple

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changes including parents changing their work hours, and a mother starting a new relationship. In a fourth case the household and child experienced a whole range of transitions over the two years, including starting school, none of which appeared to have had a major effect on the child’s or family’s food practices. The start of primary school had a positive influence on Alex’s diet. At Wave 1, his mother considered Alex to be a very fussy eater and resistant to eating vegetables. At Wave 2, she said school dinners had introduced him to new foods that he enjoys and that these have influenced his tastes at home. By contrast the start of primary school did not appear to have affected the overall quality of Joshua’s diet except that he is eating Western foods at school that he greatly enjoys. The start of secondary school in Yasmin’s case had a negative influence on her diet. Yasmin’s mother perceived her daughter’s diet positively at Wave 1 when Yasmin was nine; her vegetarian Indian diet was full of fruit and vegetables. However, in the context of recently starting secondary school at Wave 2, she was resistant to eating Indian dishes and was skipping meals. Her mother attributed these changes to the influence of her daughter’s new peer group at secondary school while also being sympathetic to her rejection of traditional Indian vegetarian cooking (the mother was not from the same background as the father). Nonetheless she was worried about what looked to be her excessive thinness. Changes in a parent’s life can also have far-reaching effects, including on diet or they may not. In Eva’s case, multiple changes had occurred including, changes in parents’ jobs and working hours, the birth of a new baby, moving house and Eva starting school. One consequence of these changes was that the mother was charged with the responsibility for cooking (formerly done by the father). Since the mother lacked time with new baby to look after and the house was still in the process of being renovated, she cut corners and failed to live up to her former high diet standards. In Jade’s case, her mother’s new boyfriend had introduced Jade to a different food culture that Jade was embracing even to the extent of influencing what her mother cooked. But growing up and becoming a teenager were also important in improving Jade’s diet as she became aware of the positive effects on her skin and appearance. The case of Jade exemplifies a major dietary transformation. Both mother and daughter attributed the positive change in Jade’s formerly ‘dreadful’ diet (her mother’s assessment at Wave 1) to becoming a teenager and also to the introduction of new dietary preferences and habits into the household via the mother’s new boyfriend. As we have shown, we can also find cases where there were few changes in parents’ lives and where children’s diets and food practices were relatively unchanged. In Alisha’s case (presented in Chapter 5), while no life course or significant parental changes were in evidence, Alisha was asserting and

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altering her food preferences as she approached her teenage years, although not yet with any detrimental effect on her diet, in particular wanting her mother to cook more Western dishes. But Alisha continued to eat well. Her mother’s established food practices were central to this. This was in part because of the family’s Hindu vegetarianism but was also due to her mother’s love of cooking, her complex shopping strategies and her industriousness in sourcing fresh food daily. For this mother, food and caring for her daughter were at the centre of family life to the extent that she had subjugated her employment career to this aim, preferring to work part-time as an assistant in her daughter’s school. Multiple changes in parents’ and children’s lives do not necessarily lead to diet change as we have shown in the case of Joshua. This case is in many ways a critical case as it unusually demonstrates how a mother manages to provide an adequate diet for her four children in the context of major disruptions to their lives and despite living on a very low income. In this case, parental separation, the move into poor privately rented housing and the birth of a new baby suggest an unfavourable climate for family life. However, the mother’s resourcefulness is considerable. She found part-time evening employment as a cleaner, calling on a friend for childcare. She is seeking to be rehoused by the council. As to her food practices, she adheres to her country’s traditional cuisine, cooking one main meal for her children in the evening. She shops carefully, does not buy her children snacks and the family never eats out. Above all, she employs her cultural capital to teach her children how to live on limited resources and to value what they are given. Joshua has recently experienced the transition to primary school in the course of the study, welcoming his introduction to the Western dishes that are on offer at school. Thus far, Joshua has not challenged the status quo of the eating habits at home.

Conclusion In this final chapter, we began by setting out the theoretical frameworks that we have employed to make sense of the shifting or continuing contexts of children’s lives in the two years of the study. We discussed the life course perspective as a conceptual framework that alerts us both to change and process. We identified the particular changes at household and child levels that those in the study experienced. Life course approaches explore interactions over time between structural constraints, institutional rules, subjective meanings and decision-making (Elder 1985; Elder and Giele 2009; Heinz and Kruger 2001: 33). The approaches take into account that contexts and transitions have implications for the trajectories of individuals and their experiences. They suggest how the timing of these is important, especially

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in relation to health. Children’s food practices are established early in life and their diets at this time have implications for their health and well-being now and later in life. Even over the short period of the study (two years), we have seen how individual development and situational and institutional factors played out in influencing children’s experiences, and how in some cases children and parents acted upon them in terms of what children ate and diet quality. We also referred to practice theory in particular to the ways in which particular food practices become established and embedded in everyday family practices and the ways in which children may be recruited into new practices. We may conclude from this analysis that a life course approach while important needs to follow children not only over long time frames but also frequently over the short term as children’s diets are constantly subject to alteration. A further conclusion relates to how perceptions of diet are constituted and how those perceptions are governed by dominant discourses concerning food and diet at the time. For example, it was common for parents (mothers) to refer positively to the practice of achieving ‘balance’ in their children’s diets while they were not always forthcoming about what balance may entail. As others in the field of longitudinal childhood research have noted, contexts as well as individuals are in transition and processes of social change (Morrow 2013). Important considerations for qualitative longitudinal research on food therefore include the meaning of different foods for particular social groups at different historical points and their perceived relationship to health and well-being.

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A

t the centre of this book there have been two concerns: the quality of young children’s diets and the consequences of parents’ employment schedules for children’s and families’ lives. As we have argued, parents and working mothers in particular have been subject to intense moral scrutiny (Daly 2001; Furedi 2002; Elkins 2003). They have been criticized in popular media as failing their children not only because of constraints on the time they can devote to parenting because of their employment but also in failing to feed their children properly. This book has explored these issues. In Chapter 2, we examined the evidence concerning the relationship between parents’ paid work and the diets of children in the general population. Subsequent chapters looked more closely at the processes at play in influencing children’s diets and how children’s food practices were shaped within and outside the home. These chapters also examined how children’s and household food practices changed over time. The approach was to examine children’s food practices in a small number of households drawn from the NDNS and to extrapolate explanations for particular patterns that applied in particular cases (Brannen and Nilsen 2011). In this concluding chapter, we propose to synthesize the main findings of the book. Second, we reflect on issues of combining different types of data as we have done in this book. Finally, we reflect on some of the policy implications of the findings and suggest some ways forward in terms of future research directions.

Is there a link between parental employment and children’s diets? Some studies have found statistical associations between parents’ employment and the quality of children’s diets. Chapter 2 reported our

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analysis of three British studies: the NDNS, the HSE and the ALSPAC. With the exception of the ALSPAC, we found no relationship between maternal employment and the foods children consume, after controlling for the other socio-economic variables. However, significant associations were found with some of the socio-economic variables, in particular, level of maternal qualifications (ALSPAC and HSE). In the NDNS, only maternal socio-economic status was significantly related to children’s diet quality, which could have acted as a proxy for maternal education (maternal education information is not supplied in the NDNS). This suggests social inequalities in the health and diets of poor working families may be of greater importance than parental employment per se. As we suggested, perhaps one reason why we did not find a relationship with maternal employment in the HSE and NDNS is because they represent a more up-to-date (and national) picture of children’s diets than that provided by the ALSPAC data (which relates to children of the 1990s and is confined to the Bristol area). It is possible that government policies in the intervening years, to increase children’s consumption of fruit and vegetables, have made a difference. We also considered some of the methodological issues in investigating these links. For example, we questioned whether the frequency of children’s consumption of particular foods is a sufficient basis for assessing diet quality. Measures across the surveys were also inconsistent. In one survey (NDNS), it was not possible to examine mothers’ employment fully as their hours of work were not collected. Other issues related to the variation in the measures used as proxies for poor diets, for example, the consumption of ‘processed foods’ in the ALSPAC and eating ‘sweets and snacks’ in the HSE. The ‘nutritional scores’ developed using the NDNS were by contrast based on how children’s consumption of nutrients were related to recommended nutritional levels. Such scores we suggest may provide a more stringent and robust measure of the quality of children’s diets.

Who does the foodwork in working families? In the context of a 24/7 society, rising food prices and static incomes, both mothers and fathers are increasingly in employment and working longer or fulltime hours. However, despite these trends and the public discourse of gender equality, fathers do not contribute to foodwork (which includes procuring, preparing and serving food, cleaning up and thinking about what to feed the family) on an equitable basis. A third of fathers in our qualitative study were said to share domestic foodwork including contributing to weekday cooking, shopping and cleaning up. Two-thirds of fathers contributed less than mothers,

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with their foodwork limited to doing some cooking only at weekends, or more infrequently, and providing occasional help with other tasks. Our secondary analysis of the Understanding Society panel survey data showed that fathers contribute more often to cooking when mothers work fulltime. The qualitative study supported this finding. It showed that in households where mothers were employed full-time, fathers shared the foodwork in about half of the cases at both waves. Among the few households where fathers did most of the foodwork, women were employed full-time, and men worked unconventional hours or from home. Over time, changes in the division of foodwork were generally slight, with more fathers’ contributions reported to have decreased than increased. It is suggested that barriers to men’s increased participation in domestic labour are both institutional and cultural; they are embedded in gendered social expectations and patterns of paid work that reinforce one another. Mothers explained fathers’ decreased contribution in terms of men’s longer and lengthening hours of work (for example, job promotion at Wave 2) and also that mothers should be responsible for children’s (dietary) health. Some mothers accounted for men’s exemption and exclusion from foodwork with reference to their perceived incompetence. Managing the food budget also fell largely to women. Chapter 2 also showed that changing or ‘niche’ food practices of individuals and households are taking place in the context of wider societal disruption, in particular ‘the end of cheap food’ (The Economist 2007; Defra 2012). Most mothers noticed rising food prices and said they employed a range of innovative strategies for keeping costs down including shopping online and at discount supermarkets, moving to cheaper products, and reducing food waste by planning meals and freezing foods.

Do working families eat together? In considering this question, we have argued that research that reports statistical associations between mothers working full-time and the frequency of ‘family meals’ can oversimplify the issue by failing fully to acknowledge the complexity of defining and measuring ‘families’ or ‘meals’. Some survey evidence suggests long parental hours are associated with fewer family meals (Understanding Society). However, this survey also suggests that other factors may be as relevant, notably the number of children in the family and the child’s age. As the NDNS shows, the quality of children’s diet is an important factor with an association between higher nutrition scores and more frequent eating with parents. Based on our qualitative evidence, we found that whether ‘the family’ eats together was not only a question of the time mothers had available but

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an issue of timing, in particular how the different schedules of parents and children were synchronized (or not) at the household level. A variety of factors facilitated or disrupted synchronicity, in particular parents’ combined work schedules, children’s and their siblings’ commitments, their ages, the size of the family and the degree to which food tastes and preferences were shared and catered for. As the qualitative study showed, some of these factors became more important over time.

Children’s power and parental control of children’s diets Practitioners and policy makers sometimes assume that parents are willing and able to control children’s diets. However, such assumptions fail to take account of how food is embedded in social relations between parents and children, with children also exercising control and offering resistance. Our qualitative study found that most parents, especially those with young children, exercised a good deal of overt and covert control over their child’s eating, while young children, unsurprisingly, on the whole exerted little control. In some families however coercion provoked resistance from children and as children got older they exercised more power. Some girls who had just reached secondary school age were increasingly resistant to their parents’ wishes, exercising their newly gained autonomy. In some cases, parents capitulated to children’s food preferences and tastes as children’s demands grew. In a further group power and control over children’s food were products of implicit negotiations and understandings between adults and children: parents generally gave children what they liked and were likely to eat and children asked for what they were likely to be given.

In which other settings do the children of employed parents eat? In this study, we considered it important to take into account that children of working parents eat in a range of places including childcare and schools. Thus we considered it likely that foods eaten in out-of-home contexts may influence children’s preferences, or complement and compensate for what is eaten at home. We found that parental regulation of what their children ate elsewhere and the ways in which parents took account of this in feeding children at home were dependent upon the information available to them.

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Some parents also reported that their regulation of children’s overall food intake was constrained when children were cared for by informal carers who did not necessarily provide food which met parents’ standards. Parents’ roles as mediators changed over time as children’s growing autonomy provided them with greater opportunities to select foods for themselves, especially when they started secondary school. We concluded therefore that parents should not be viewed as the chief or only influence on children’s diets.

Do children’s diets in working families change over time and why? The importance of taking account of the life course is theoretically important and also increasingly recognized in public policy. Diet or other behavioural change may be more likely to happen at social transition points. A third of the cases (10/36) studied at Wave 2 bore this out longitudinally, with children’s diets improving or deteriorating as the lives of themselves and their parents shifted in the two years they were studied. On the other hand, in some households, established food practices weathered the changes occurring elsewhere in children’s and parents’ lives. However, all the children in the study were subject to maturational development, leading in some cases to the expansion of their palates and changes in food practices. Some changes took place in the context of parents’ life course transitions, for example, the birth of a new baby or mothers starting a new relationship, but such changes did not necessarily provoke dietary change.

Linking qualitative and quantitative data The research design adopted in the study involved the use of both quantitative evidence and a range of qualitative methods. This research design was challenging and required us to reflect upon some of the advantages and limitations of linking different data and methods (see Brannen and O’Connell 2015). In this study, the NDNS provided a ‘captive’ sample for the qualitative study and also the opportunity to compare and contextualize the qualitative data in relation to a large, representative data set of households with young children located in England. However the two samples were not directly comparable on key dimensions. The survey data concerning the quality of children’s diet intakes that were conducted at one moment in time did not link to qualitative data when they were collected at a later time point. This was a critical issue

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in studying children’s diets because it was not within the resources of the qualitative study to repeat the collection of the nutrition diary data previously gathered in the NDNS. In addition, it needs to be borne in mind that researchers who are granted access to an existing large-scale data set have to make decisions concerning the characteristics of the qualitative sample to be drawn at an early point in the research design and may not have the flexibility that they might ideally wish for or be able to impose in a wholly qualitative study. Quantitative and qualitative methods each suffer from their own biases and limitations. Qualitative methods are advantageous in terms of addressing issues of meaning, for example, concerning the significance of family meals that have been seen as a key determinant of whether children eat well. Survey diary data are advantageous in measuring behaviours, in this study about what children eat. By contrast, qualitative methods, while providing contextual and symbolic meanings about food and meals, may not provide sufficient detailed information about what is eaten and how much. On the other hand, surveys are renowned for generating socially acceptable answers – for instance, in the case of the interviews conducted as part of research for this book respondents may not have wanted to admit that their diets fail to measure up to normative ideals. In effect, questions posed in surveys and in interviews may both provoke normative accounts or justifications and may not address the ‘disconnect’ between everyday practices and reports of practices. For food practices are clothed in moral discourses and are thereby difficult to study by whatever method. In researching everyday practices such as food practices, it is also necessary to confront the possibility that informants may not reflect upon what seems to them ‘too ordinary’ to comment upon. Both qualitative and survey researchers may face this same problem. Mixed-method research can however provide an articulation between different theoretical levels as in macro, meso and micro contexts. In this study, the national survey evidence gave a representative picture of patterns of children’s diet across England while the qualitative case studies focused attention upon particular households and the meanings that children and parents attributed to food, both at a moment in time and across time. However, these theoretical levels typically draw upon different logics of interpretation and explanation, making it necessary to demonstrate how different logics can be integrated (Kelle 2001). In this study, it was necessary to translate the research questions concerning children’s food practices in the context of parents’ employment patterns according to opportunities afforded by the research methods at our disposal and their logics of inquiry. Consequently, because the data produced were not always compatible, nor intended to be, and were used to achieve different forms of explanation, the analyses of these data do not necessarily map on to each other in every instance. In practice sometimes we found

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the analyses corroborated each other, in others that they complemented one another, while in other instances analyses were dissonant. In addressing the research question of how parental employment influences children’s diets, both the survey data and the qualitative material together proved relatively successful since the units of analysis in both referred to the diet behaviour of children although, as mentioned, there were methodological issues about the different measures used and different time periods the measures referred to. Another research question concerned the distribution of foodwork in working families. We identified some quantitative evidence on this topic. In Understanding Society only limited tasks were recorded, however, namely cooking, omitting all the other tasks associated with foodwork. Such omissions potentially underestimated the gendered ways mothers and fathers made a contribution to the household. We also sought evidence, quantitative and qualitative, concerning the putative association between children eating family meals and parental employment. Through the qualitative data and quantitative data (NDNS), we were able to determine the frequency of parental presence and child presence at family mealtimes. However, only the qualitative study allowed us to tease out whether children and parents were both eating the same food and the conditions under which they did or did not do so. The qualitative study also provided insight into the symbolic and moral aspects surrounding the concept of family meals as well as practices of eating together, while in the analysis of the quantitative data the onus was on the researcher to define what constituted a ‘family meal’. The combination of quantitative and qualitative methods may not provide a total solution. Qualitative and quantitative methods used in combination may not succeed in generating the knowledge that the researcher is seeking. Given these complexities, it is suggested that a narrative approach should be adopted in reporting the data analyses (Elliott 2005). By this we mean that in writing up these data we have tried to be attentive to the ways in which we have integrated different analyses, noted issues that arose in interpreting the different data both separately and in combination and how the use of different methods have benefited or complicated the process. We would argue that this is particularly important in relation to policy relevant research. Policy makers and other stakeholder groups need their attention drawn to the caveats associated with different types of data and, in particular, the advantages and issues of employing more one research methodology (Brannen and Moss 2012). In addition, the researcher should be attentive to the ways in which the processes of ‘translation’ involved in interpreting data are likely, often unwittingly, to reflect rather than reveal the contexts in which the research is carried out, the research questions posed, the theoretical frameworks that are fashionable at the time of study and the methods by which the data are produced (Brannen 2005a).

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Just as when we use or reuse archived data, it is important in primary research to take into account the broad historical and social contexts of the data and the research inquiry. Research that suggests that parental employment has negative consequences for children at a time when dual earner households have become both a norm and a financial necessity risks not only being seen as contentious but also invokes moral sanctions of mainly maternal behaviour. This requires researchers to draw on as much evidence as is available and relevant but also to subject it to robust scrutiny. We have found the use of several approaches useful in this regard. It has required as much, if not more, reflexivity than other types of research. It has meant working closely with our statistician colleagues who carried out the secondary analysis of the survey data sets. It has meant examining our own presumptions and preferences about different methods and to shift away from our entrenched positions – theoretical, epistemological and methodological. Mixed methods provide for an articulation between different layers and types of explanation – macro and micro – each of which cannot be fully explained without reference to the other (Kelle 2001). Mixing methods is not only a matter of strategy. It is not a toolkit or a technical fix nor is it a belt-and-braces approach. All data analyses require contextualization and interpretation, and whether this is part of a mixedmethod or multi-method research strategy, it is necessary to have recourse to diverse data sources and data collected in different ways.

Implications for policy and future research The book’s findings have a number of implications for public policy and suggest some future research directions. In the first place, the book suggests that policy needs to take account of the methodological challenges of assessing the research evidence and not to rely on one type of methodology as the gold standard, while at the same time recognizing that different types of research evidence may each provide different insights or raise new questions regarding family food practices. A number of the book’s findings have implications for public policy interventions. First, policy needs to take into account that children are active consumers, consuming a considerable amount of their diet outside the home, and are important influences in negotiating what they eat at home, demanding particular foods and resisting parents’ attempts to influence them. The recognition of these processes has implications for ‘parenting’ programmes that target mothers/parents. They also have implications for food marketing directed to children, because the food industry has not been slow to recognize the consumption power of children. Some governments (e.g. Norway) have

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been quicker than others (e.g. the UK) to respond to campaigners’ demands that the regulation of the marketing of ‘junk food’ to children is extended to include all forms of media. Future research would benefit from taking a longterm view in examining the historical relationship between the food industry, food marketing and ‘children’s food’. Second, the findings suggest that health interventions need to take account of the life course. As the book has shown social transitions in children’s lives and in parents’ lives, can constitute turning points in terms of the dietary preferences and patterns of children, both for better or worse. However, in some households, established food practices may mitigate external changes and influences, as in the case of households in which it is customary to cook from raw ingredients (for example, vegetarian diets centred around fresh vegetables) or in other households where customary use of cheap processed foods is common. There is a need for life course policy perspectives to address the ways in which children’s and parents’ diets and well-being change over time in the context of policy change, food technologies and other practices, for example, in the household or in school and childcare institutions. Life course approaches are particularly important for the delivery of healthy eating messages in taking account of the reality that diet intake is not simply a matter of individual choice. Related to this point, the book suggests that because children move through a range of institutional settings over the life course (childcare and schools), more policy attention needs to be paid to the fact that children of working parents eat in a range of settings. There is a need therefore to change the political rhetoric – parents are not the only culprits where children’s diets fall below standard. Third, health advice, where it is provided, needs to address in a proactive way the status quo whereby the majority of working mothers take most of the responsibility for cooking and feeding the family. If gender equality policies are to shift gender stereotypes and responsibilities, they need to be mainstreamed and more far reaching. Dietary guidance messages such as the current UK social marketing campaign Change4Life should not only be tailored to the needs of busy working parents but targeted towards encouraging more fathers to do their fair share and prepare healthy balanced meals for families. Indeed policies should be directed to boys and girls through the National Curriculum Key Stages 1–3 to ensure that they learn about both nutrition and proficiency in foodwork (not only cooking). This might help to encourage more men and fathers to become more involved in foodwork. While some small-scale qualitative studies have focused on fathers’ contributions to foodwork, this also remains an area fertile for research, particularly regarding the conditions under which men do play a significant role in feeding families. Fourth, the study suggests that in order to work effectively, health advice that is offered to people must make sense in terms of the routines and time

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schedules of everyday lives (Jackson, Olive and Smith 2009; ACSS 2010). As the book has shown, eating together is not an easy matter to organize in a working family given the timetables and demands of parents’ lives, fathers’ working hours in particular and in the context of the need to maximize working hours in a difficult labour market and economic context. Working hours in Britain are increasingly non-standardized and subjected to the intensification of work. Because gendered patterns of employment continue, fathers work longer hours than mothers with the result that some aspects of childcare, in particular responsibility for feeding children, are also gendered. Moreover, as children get older their lives are subject to changing timetables. Thus far in the UK public policy has largely focused on parental leave policies and on promoting employment flexibility for working parents in balancing work and family. However, in practice, these policies are not only limited but are directed to and taken up mostly by mothers. Such policies take little account of family routines and the ways in which people celebrate and seek to practice family life. Work-life policy that adopts a family perspective would enable fathers and mothers to create environments in which families can eat and spend time together. The solutions to these problems extend beyond public policy to the labour market. But a start would be for public policy to shift away from individualizing and blaming parents towards a refocusing on families and family time. In summary, the book’s findings suggest that public policy interventions must target social structures as well as deliver ‘messages’. It is necessary to move away from the ‘individual choice’ agenda and to adopt a societal approach that includes not only nutrition education focused on parents and children concerning their individual food consumption but policies that target and regulate the commercial food industry that is so powerful in determining what foods are available and how they are marketed to (and thereby exploit) busy working parents and their children (Swinburn et al. 2011). While a growing body of research, informed by social practice theory (that also addresses food), argues for this change of focus (e.g. Spurling et al. 2013), national governments appear slow – or powerless – to respond (Patel 2008). However, research is only one actor in bringing about structural and policy change. In the context of the huge power of multinational companies, the farming lobby and politicians’ privileging of the economy over the well-being of citizens, the fostering of critical thinking and the consideration of possible alternatives to current ways of living and eating become ever more urgent. We hope that this book, that has at its heart the welfare of children and parents, will contribute to such thinking.

Appendix I: Children’s participation in interview activities at Waves 1 and 2

Table I.1  Number of target children participating in interview activities Activities Paper plate

Trolley

Vignettes

‘Who Does What’ activity

Timeline

Photo ­elicitation exercise

Wave 1 (n = 48)

26

26

23

n/a

14

9*

Wave 2 (n = 36)

21

n/a

29

19

n/a

8*

*More children than this participated because siblings of target children also took part in some cases.

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Appendix II: Sampling and retention in the qualitative longitudinal study

Because of the relatively small size of the original NDNS wave (N = 1000), children in a wide age range (two to ten years) and their working parent(s) were included in the qualitative sample of children and their families (n = 47). The diversity of our sample presented us with particular challenges and opportunities for the follow-up study. A particular opportunity was the ability to explore which transitions are important in relation to family food and eating practices. Maintaining the sample is an important and ongoing task in longitudinal research. All reasonable steps to minimize attrition were taken. Contact was maintained with participants between Waves 1 and 2 through Christmas cards and research updates in the form of magazine-style newsletters. In addition to continuing to use these methods, a website was developed and updated, keeping participants informed about study progress and inviting their perspectives. There is some evidence that the relationship built up between participant and researcher at first interview tends to result in less attrition in the case of qualitative longitudinal studies compared with quantitative research; the importance in quantitative research of having a researcher of at least the same grade in a follow-up wave as at the first wave has also been found to be important. Two of the four researchers at Wave 1 were the same and the new researcher was highly experienced and at the same grade as the Research Officer who left the study to work on another project (another team member retired). Inevitably there was some attrition, however. A re-contact question was built into the Wave 1 questionnaire and child and adult consent forms. All participants in the qualitative study indicated that they were happy to be re-approached by the research team about a future possible study.

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The sample (forty-seven at Wave 1) was re-contacted two years after first interview via an introductory letter, personal letter and follow-up phone call. Participants were offered a small token of appreciation (a Love2shop voucher for £30). Following the advice of the Advisory Group, some participants who had said they were busy or had not responded were re-contacted with the offer of a larger token of appreciation (£50). This resulted in the participation of three households who had previously declined or not responded, two of which were poor lone-parent households. The final qualitative sample at Wave 2, and reasons for non-participation, is set out in Table II.1, below:

Table II.1  Participation and non-participation at Wave 2 Included in sample at Wave 2 Non-participation

36/47 a) Have moved with no means of tracking down/contacting

2

b) Do not seem to have moved but do not respond to letter/calls (covert refusal)

4

c) Refusal (too busy/health)

4

c) Did not turn up for interview

1

Total Photo project

Completed

11/37 10

Eleven families did not take part at Wave 2. Reasons are given above. Most of the families (8/11) who were not included at Wave 2 were in the ‘middle income’ range (£30,000–£49,999); one was in the ‘low income’ range (£50,000). The three mothers who declined to participate because they were too busy were all employed in full-time work (30+ hours per week). Of those who did participate at Wave 2, 100 per cent agreed to us archiving their data with UK Data Service (UKDS) and to being approached in the future about a possible Wave 3. Anonymized interview transcripts are available for research purposes via the UK Data Service. Supplementary documentation, including the information and consent forms used in the research, has also been made available through the archive. See: http://discover.ukdataservice. ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=851524&type=Data%20catalogue

Appendix III: Defining and measuring ‘family meals’: Methodological considerations

One of the aims of the current study was to explore the usefulness of the NDNS data for examining the relationship between meal patterns, nutrition outcomes and a range of socio-demographic factors such as maternal employment. Specifically a concern of the study was to explore how ‘family meals’ might be defined and measured in this data set. The NDNS survey was not designed to collect data about ‘family meals’. This meant a concept of ‘family meals’ had to be operationalized using the data available. However, the nature of the data meant the operationalizable definition did not correspond very well to the ‘idea’ of family meals (as understood by participants in the qualitative survey as ‘all the family eating together’). The MCS and US data sets suffer from the biases of poorly structured questions and retrospective self-report. Understanding Society includes the following question: ‘In the past 7 days, how many times have you eaten an evening meal together with your [child/children] and other family members who live with you?’ This leaves the respondent to choose their own interpretation of ‘family meal’, and people may interpret this differently. The Millennium Cohort Study had a different question1: ‘Who usually eats the evening meal with [Cohort child's name] on weekdays?’ This does not use the phrase ‘family meal’, but instead references the ‘evening meal’. For the purposes of the quantitative analysis, we defined family meals in the NDNS as eating occasions on a weekday (Monday to Friday); with family members; at home and between 5.00 to 7.59 p.m. Since the NDNS data are collected through a three- to four-day diary an advantage is that they do not suffer from the problems of poorly constructed questions and retrospective self-report. However, the NDNS also had disadvantages for our purposes. The diet diary asks participants to record who was with the child at each eating occasion. Since social norms hold that young

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children do not eat alone it could be that an adult is recorded as present when this is not the case. In addition, we do not know if the ‘present’ adult was also eating: while a ‘family meal’ might be thought to imply members of the family eating along with the child, it can only be known from the data that the child ate in the presence of family members. Since the interest was in eating together on weekdays, but not all diary days were weekdays, this reduced the sample size. The qualitative data provide enough detail to allow sociologically informed interpretations about eating together to be made such as who ate with whom, whether they ate the same meal, at what time of day and the conditions under which this happened. However the small size of the sample, and its diversity, for example, in terms of child age and ethnicity, does not enable the meaningful linking of meal patterns to children's nutrition outcomes. The quantitative NDNS data on the other hand with a much larger sample permit associations between nutrition outcomes and the eating situation (who with, when), taking account of other factors such as NS-SEC. But not enough detail is provided about the social context (whether the other person present was also eating, whether they ate the same meal) to enable interpretations to be made about ‘how’ eating together relates to nutrition outcomes. In a recent analysis of the Growing up in Scotland survey, Skafida (2013) provides evidence that the family meals ‘effect’, that is, the association between ‘family meals’ and healthier overall diets is due to parents and children eating the same foods rather than at the same time (Skafida 2013). The implication is that it is not eating with parents which is important but that it is ‘children’s food’ (food culturally understood as being ‘for’ children) which is less healthy. It is currently not straightforward to examine this further using NDNS data.

Notes Acknowledgements 1 For the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) the principal investigator and depositor was the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, Institute of Education, University of London. The data collector was National Centre for Social Research. The sponsors were ESRC, Office for National Statistics, Department for Education and Skills, Department for Work and Pensions, DH, Welsh Assembly Government, Scottish Government, Northern Ireland Executive. Data are distributed by the UK Data Service (study number 5795 and 6411). None of these bear any responsibility for the analysis or interpretation of the data presented here. For the NDNS, the principal investigators were National Centre for Social Research, Medical Research Council Resource Centre for Human Nutrition Research and University College London Medical School. The original data creators were the National Centre for Social Research and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. The sponsors were the Food Standards Agency and the Department of Health. Data from the NDNS are Crown Copyright and are distributed by the UK Data Service (study number 6533). None of these bear any responsibility for the analysis or interpretation of the data presented here. For Understanding Society the principal investigators were University of Essex, Institute for Social and Economic Research and NatCen Social Research; the data collectors were NatCen Social Research and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, Central Survey Unit. The sponsors were ESRC, Department for Work and Pensions, Department for Education, Department for Transport, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Department for Communities and Local Government, DH, Scottish Government, Welsh Assembly Government, Northern Ireland Executive, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the FSA. The data are distributed by UK Data Archive, University of Essex, Colchester.

Chapter 1 1 The study was funded as a collaborative grant between the ESRC and FSA in 2009 (RES-190–25-0010). On 1 October 2010, responsibility for nutrition policy transferred from FSA to the DH. As a result, the research project also transferred to DH. The follow on study was funded by ESRC and DH

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(ES/J012556/1). The key aim of the ESRC/FSA collaboration was to fund research which would ‘build on what is already known’ about diet in the UK. Specifically, the programme sought to generate innovative research ‘to further explore and explain UK dietary decisions’, the contexts in which they are made, and the circumstances under which ‘dietary decisions’ change – or do not change – over time. Responding to the ESRC/FSA research brief which encouraged social scientists to engage with the new rolling NDNS, the project made use of the NDNS as a data set for secondary analysis and a sampling frame for the qualitative study of particular households. As the book (particularly Chapter 8) sets out, a number of methodological lessons were learnt from the social scientific engagement with the NDNS, in particular its nutrition data, and in combination with qualitative research methods. 2 A couple of children were aged twelve by the time they were interviewed. 3 These age ranges were based on the NDNS classification. 4 At Phase 1 a measure of diet quality was developed. This used a set of nutrients (restricted to information in the ‘dietary feedback’ provided to participants of the NDNS) to calculate a ‘nutritional score’. A summary measure of diet quality was produced based on consumption of non-milk extrinsic sugars (NMES), dietary fibre, Vitamin C, folate, calcium and iron, relative to UK dietary recommendations for children of different ages (up to age ten) (Department of Health 1991). The score was restricted to these nutrients because it was the only information on diets that could be obtained within the available time frame for the purposes of drawing the qualitative sample. A higher score indicates a healthier diet, since this reflects consumption of a greater proportion of the recommended intakes for dietary fibre, Vitamin C, folate, calcium and iron and a lower proportion NMES. This nutritional score had a normal distribution; scores varied for all children aged 1.5–10 years from 14 per cent to 94 per cent (55 per cent on average). It was developed for this study because there was no measure of overall diet quality based on UK recommendations for young children (under the age of ten years) in existence and a proxy for overall diet quality was required for purposive sampling from the survey and as an outcome measure. The calculation method for this nutritional score is reported elsewhere (Simon et al. 2012). 5 The Main Food Provider (MFP) is defined in the NDNS survey as the person ‘with the main responsibility for shopping and preparing food’. 6 The relationship between the 8-, 5- and 3-class versions of the NS-SEC is given at: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/classifications/currentstandard-classifications/soc2010/soc2010-volume-3-ns-sec--rebased-onsoc2010--user-manual/index.html.

Chapter 2 1 It should be noted that the UK research cited was undertaken before nutrition guidelines for preschool settings were introduced (School Food Trust 2012).

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2 This report draws on data from the ‘Parental Time, Role Strains, Coping, and Children’s Diet and Nutrition’ project. These data were drawn from mothers, fathers (where present) and children from over 300 households in the Houston, Texas MSA. Data from parents came from telephone interviews that were meant to obtain information about the parents’ work experiences and sociodemographic background and from self-administered questionnaires that sought to obtain data on income and time use. Data from one child per household came from a personal at-home interview, which was conducted in order to obtain information about parenting, eating habits, dietary intake and activity levels. Children also underwent a brief physical exam for body composition measurements and maintained a two-day dietary and two-day activity record. 3 Theoretically there are limitations. The concept underlying much of the research discussed is that of the ‘trade-off’ (Becker 1993). Given mothers’ continued responsibility for food shopping and preparation even when they are in employment, the assumption is that paid work diverts mothers’ time from foodwork. Thus while mothers’ employment generates income which may be used to purchase better quality food, the model assumes that it also leaves them less time for preparing healthy foods or for encouraging good dietary habits (e.g. Li et al. 2013). However this ‘household production model’ has been shown to be flawed on many levels (Ferber 2003) – for instance, it does not and cannot take account of responsibility for particular ‘tasks’ such as childrearing and domestic work. Further, using time use data, Bianchi (2000) finds that working mothers do not sacrifice time with their children but instead reduce their leisure time.

Chapter 3 1 The MTUS is a harmonized database of large nationally representative time use diary surveys collected from the 1960s to the 2000s. 2 For this analysis, we excluded the lone mother households – six cases at both waves. 3 Future research should look into ways in which couples with children who do share foodwork equally share knowledge – for example, do they also share the childcare so they know what children like to eat; do they use a chalkboard to write up foods they are running short of?

Chapter 4 1 Fathers continue to work much longer hours than mothers although between 2001 and 2011, the usual weekly working hours of all fathers working fulltime in couple households with children fell (from forty-seven to forty-five hours per week). The hours for full-time working mothers also fell but only slightly (Connolly et al. 2013).

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Chapter 5 1 There are also known differences in terms of the nutritional intake of children and adults in different ethnic groups (HSE 2006; Rennie and Jebb 2005). 2 Red indicated that children had ‘no say’, amber ‘some’ and green ‘a lot’.

Chapter 7 1 They adopt this term from Merton (1968, cited in Elder, Johnson and Crosnoe 2006) and define it thus: theoretical orientations establish a common field of inquiry by providing a framework for descriptive and explanatory research (Elder, Johnson and Crosnoe 2006: 4). 2 These age points have been subject to change over time and new age points have been added at which children are expected to enter preschool education. 3 A novel kitchen appliance used by Portuguese consumers.

Appendix III 1 This question was asked at ages five and seven.

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176

Author Index Academy of Social Sciences  150 Adler, T. A.  37 Alanen, L.  81 Alcock, S.  83 Anderson, P.  14, 18, 29 Arendell, T.  55, 60, 82, 97 Attree, P.  3, 52 Backett-Milburn, K.  83 Barnett, R.  76 Bauer, K.  30 Baumrind, D.  81 Baxter, J.  44, 51 Beagan, B.  44, 50, 51 Beck, U.  82 Becker, G.  59 Benton, D.  81 Bernstein, B.  83 Berthoud, R.  14 Bianchi, S.  159 Birch, L.  97 Bittman, M.  32 Blum-Kulka, S.  43 Bourdieu, P.  3 Brannen, J.  2, 6, 10, 30, 32, 33, 40, 41, 55, 58, 60, 82, 83, 96, 97, 100, 141, 145, 147 Bronfenbrenner, U.  116 Brose, H.-G.  58 Brown, J.  14 Buckingham, D.  98 Bugge, A.  2 Carrigan, M.  33 Cawley, F.  14, 56 Chapman, T.  51 Charles, N.  59, 70 Cheng, S.-L.  59 Christensen, P.  116, 118

Clastres, P.  83 Coleman, J.  97 Coltrane, S.  33 Connolly, S.  159 n.1 Cook, D.  83, 94 Coveney, J.  116 Crepinsek, M.  4, 15, 28 Crompton, R.  2 Curtis, P.  32, 37, 42, 44, 51, 82 Daily Express  32 The Daily Telegraph  32 Daly, K.  58, 59, 96, 122,141 Daniels, A. K.  31 Darke, J.  51 Defra  7, 31, 44, 96, 143 Department for Education  157 n.1 Department of Health  xi, 158 DeVault, M.  31, 43, 59 Devine, C. M.  xi, 60, 83, 119, 120 Devine, F.  83 Dixon, J.  82, 98 Douglas, M.  59, 78 Dowler, E.  44 DWP& DfE  1 Economist 143 Elder, G.  3, 4, 119, 120, 138, 160 n.1 Elkins, D.  141 Elliott, J.  10, 147 Emmett, P. M.  29 Eurofound 58 Eurostat 14 Ferber, M. A.  159 n.3 Feunekes, G. I.  120 Finch, J.  50 Fischler, C.  59, 100 Fisher, J.  91

178

AUTHOR INDEX

Foucault, M.  83 Fox, B.  13 Furedi, F.  97, 141 Gaina, A.  14 Garey, A. I  2, 30, 55, 82, 97 Garhammer, M.  58 Gershuny, J.  32, 33 Giddens, A.  82 Gillis, J.  58, 59 Gillman, M.  76 Glennie, P.  58 Glick, P.  30 Glucksmann, M.  33 Gram, M.  83, 84 Gregson, N.  31, 34 Greishaber, S.  59, 83 Griffith, R.  31, 52 Gustafsson, U.  83, 100 Guthman, J.  87 Gwozdz, W.  18 Halkier, B.  121, 122 Harden, J.  9, 59 Harvey, D.  58, 100 Hawkins, S. S.  4, 13, 14, 17, 18, 20, 28, 29, 56, 82 Hays, S.  13 Heinz, W. R.  4, 138 Hochschild, A. R.  32, 53, 58, 96 Holland, J.  4, 120 Holloway, S. L.  59 HSE  5, 14, 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 142, 160 n.1

Labour Force Survey  13 Lambie-Mumford, H.  47 Lansley, S.  76 Layard, R.  13 Lévi-Strauss, C.  105 Lewis, J.  33, 76, 102 Lewis, S.  58, 76 Li, J.  159 n.3 Lien, M.  98 Lukes, S.  83, 92 Lupton, D.  59, 77 Maccoby, E.  81 McDermott, L.  82 McIntosh, A.  4, 16, 28 McIntosh, I. 83 McLeod, J.  122 Maher, J. M.  43, 55, 82, 99 Mak, T.  29 Marshall, D.  59, 83 Martin, B.  51 Mason, J.  9, 30 Mauthner, M.  83 Mayall, B.  82, 97 Meah, A.  33, 170 Mennell, S.  33 Mestdag, I.  101 Metcalfe, A.  33, 37, 43, 97 Moen, P.  120 Moisio, R.  41 Morgan, D.  32, 121 Morrissey, T.  14 Morrow, V.  33, 40, 139 Murcott, A.  32, 59, 70 Murphy, E.  43, 82, 110

The Independent  59 Jackson, P.  33, 59, 150 Jacobs, J.  58 James, A.  82, 83, 94, 98 Jamieson, L.  82 Johnson, R. K.  15 Kan, M. Y.  32, 33 Kelle, U.  146, 148 Knight, A.  101, 114 Kremers, S.  82

Neumark-Sztainer, D.  14, 56 Nippert-Eng, C.  58 North, K.  17, 19 Northstone, K.  17, 19, 20 Ochs, E.  83 O’Connell, R.  6, 10, 81, 82, 84, 106 Office for National Statistics  14, 64, 158 Owen, C.  xi, 56

AUTHOR INDEX Patel, R.  150 Pearson, N.  82 Phipps, S.  14 Pike, J.  83 Punch, S.  33, 40, 99, 103, 121 Rennie, K. L.  160 n.1 Rosa, H.  58 Rutherford, M.  82 School Food Trust  158 n.1 Schor, J. B.  76, 82 Segal, L.  32 Short, F.  44 Shove, E.  3, 121, 122 Simon, A.  xi, 20, 158 n.4 Skafida, V.  156 Skinner, C.  108 Solberg, A.  82 Southerton, D.  3, 58, 101 Spaargaren, G.  52 Spence, A.  13 Spurling, N.  150 Stephen, A.  30 Strauss, A.  94 Sullivan, O.  32 Sung, S.  44

179

Sweeting, H.  13, 16 Swinburn, B.  150 Szabo, M.  33, 44 Thompson, C.  34 Truninger, M.  122 Twine, R.  122 Valentine, G.  59, 83, 90, 106 Vincent, C.  59 Walkerdine, V.  82, 87, 97 Warde, A.  3, 33, 34, 41, 42, 58, 59, 75, 121 Warin, M.  82 Warren, T.  58 Wethington, E.  120 Whitford, J.  3 Whitton, C.  28 Wilk, R.  59, 100 Wills, W. J.  41, 51, 67, 97, 101 Wolf, J.  30 Woodhead, M.  81 Worsely, A.  3 Zeiher, H.  82, 97 Zivkovic, T.  30

180

Subject Index after-school clubs and activities meals and food in after school clubs  111, 112 participation in after-school clubs  78, 86, 90, 99, 103, 107, 111 analysis of data  9–10, see ­linking  data au pairs  3, 34, 41, 42, 87, 88, 103, 132 Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)  5, 14, 17, 19, 20–2, 24, 27–9, 142 Change4Life 149 changes in children’s diets  99–119 childhood, see also children childhood parents’ own  65, 134 children children as social actors  4, 81–99 children’s body clocks  65, 75 children’s diet  13–31, 122–39 children’s extra-curricular ­activities  59, 68, 70, 77, 125 children’s food preferences and tastes  69, 70, 71, 72, 74, 75, 77, 78, 79, 83, 85, 86, 92, 95, 96, 98, 104, 105, 106, 109, 111, 120, 120, 121, 122, 125, 127, 129, 131, 135, 136, 137, 138, 144 children’s life course ­transitions  119–39 children’s power/ control  81–99 children’s resistance  8, 3, 91, 98, 100, 121, 131, 144 commensality  55–81, 107 consumer choice  3 contextualist perspective  2, 3, 5 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals 15

control children’s control, see children’s power parental control  81–99 convenience foods  47, 67, 121, 128, 133 daycare  14, 15, 18, 29, 30, 42, 66, 68, 70, 74, 75, 77, 90, 99–114, 149 diary data  146 Diet and Health Knowledge ­Survey  15 discount supermarkets  45, 49, 52, 143 dual earner households  1, 2, 11, 14, 31, 34, 53, 62, 63, 148 Early Childhood and Child Care Study 15 employment patterns of parents, see fathers’ employment; maternal employment family family friendly employment ­policies  58 family habitus  3, 121 family income  1, 2, 5, 7, 13, 20, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 33, 34, 41, 154 family meals and routines  1, 5, 13, 14, 55–81, 143–4, 147 family practices  122, 139 fathers’ employment  2, 9, 40, 50, 53, 56, 63 64, 68, 72, 76, 78, 88, 132, 142, 143, 150, 159 n.1 fathers and foodwork  31–55 fathers’ shift work  64, 65–6, 76 food food budgeting  11, 31, 44, 45, 48 food change over time  119–41

182

SUBJECT INDEX

food ’choice’, see children’s food preferences food outsourcing  11, 33, 35, 37, 38, 40, 42, 49, 52, 93, 143 food planning  11, 31 food practices  2, 145, 146, 148, 149 passim food prices  7, 11, 31, 44–7 food procuring  11, 31, 50, 142 food spaces  77, 99–119 foods to take away  33, 42, 65, 101, 121, 132, 134, 136 food vegetarian  68, 69, 106, 130, 137, 138, 149 food waste  43, 47, 52, 86, 94, 134, 143 foodwork foodwork, gender division of  31–55 foodwork, responsibility for  31–55 food work and accounting for ­division of labour  42–4 foodwork and children’s ­contribution  40–1 foodwork and cooking  31–81, 121, 122, 125, 127, 128, 132, 134, 136, 137, 138, 142, 143, 147, 149 foodwork and shopping  32, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 73, 83, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 121, 129, 138, 142, 143, 158 n.5, 159 n.3 foodwork competence  1, 42, 50, 51, 52, 53, 97, 143 fruit and vegetable consumption  19, 24, 27, 28, 29, 123, 132, 133, 137, 142 generational order  51 grandparent care / informal and ­relatives’ care / friends  102, 103, 104, 108, 114, 145 health interventions  82, 149 Health Survey for England  5, 14, 19, 20, 21–8, 142, 160 n.1

Healthy Eating Index  5, 15 household income, see family income household socio-economic status (SEC)  7, 16, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 28, 34, 96, 142 interviews interviews children  6, 10 interviews parents  6, 10, 159 n.2 interview topics covered  6­ Labour Force Survey  13 life course perspective  3, 4, 118, 19, 120, 124 linking data/ integration of mixed methods  10, 18, 75, 145–8 longitudinal research design  2, 5, 9, 10, 11, 19, 53, 60, 122 markets /marketized food ­environment  18, 34, 41, 82, 98, 111, 121 maternal education  15, 20, 21, 24, 26, 28, 29, 33, 142 maternal employment maternal employment and ­associations with children’s diet and weight  15, 20, 21, 24, 25, 28, 29, 142 maternal employment and work hours  7, 8, 13, 14, 17, 18, 28, 33, 34–7, 38, 39, 41, 42, 48, 49, 52, 53, 56, 60–1, 65, 67, 72, 76, 78, 79, 82, 88, 94, 96, 102, 113, 114, 115, 125, 130, 142, 143 mothers’ flexible work ­arrangements  58 mothers’ shift work  66, 77 maturational development of ­children  125, 126, 145 meals meals and ’balance’  104, 105, 107, 139, 149 meals as collectivized  72, 74–5 meals as healthy  45, 50 meals as individualized  71, 72–4 meal routines, see family meals methodological issues in assessing quality of children’s diets  122

SUBJECT INDEX Millennium Cohort Study (MCS)  4, 5, 17, 28, 56, 57 moral scrutiny of mothers  13, 141 motherhood, see foodwork; ­maternal education; maternal ­employment multi-method research, see ­linking  data Multi National Time Use Study  32, 33 nannies  40, 41, 42, 77, 95, 103, 125 National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS)  5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14, 19, 20, 24–9, 31, 34, 35, 56, 57, 61, 77, 78, 141, 142, 143, 145, 146, 147, 153, 155, 156, 157 n.1 negotiation in adult-child relations, see children’s power; parental control ’New man’  32 ’niche’ food practices  52, 143 non response  15, 154 nutritional scores  20, 24, 27, 29, 142, 158 obesity  1, 13, 14, 30, 56, 82 packed lunches  65, 86, 99, 101, 103, 104, 105, 110, 111, 115, 117 parental control  81–99 parental life course transitions  125, 131, 145 pester power of children  82, 92 physical activity of children  17 poverty  1, 48 practice approach  121, 139, 150 processed foods  20, 24, 41, 87, 107, 111, 123, 125, 133, 142, 149 public policy  1, 29, 58, 145, 148, 150 qualitative study  5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 35 41, 53, 60, 78, 96, 119, 142, 143, 145, 146, 147, 153

183

sampling  5, 153–4, 158 n.1, 4 School Food Trust  158 n.1 school meals included at ­preschool  48, 93, 103, 104, 105, 106, 110, 111, 112, 115, 126, 127, 129, 134 secondary analysis  5, 6, 19–30, 143, 148 snacking  16, 28, 78, 112, 115, 122 social class, see household ­socio-economic status sweets and snacks  17, 19, 21, 24, 25, 26, 29, 48, 73, 74, 90, 91, 92, 95, 99, 101, 114, 115, 142 time buying time  42 meal times  58, 96, see also ­family meals and routines saving time  42 shifting time  42, 75 synchronicity  55, 57, 58, 59, 63, 68, 72, 76, 77, 78, 144 time poverty  58, 96 transitions of children transition to nursery  102, 125 transition to primary school  87, 97, 111, 112, 126, 136, 138 transition to secondary school  87, 97, 111, 112, 118, 125, 126 Understanding Society  5, 1, 31, 34, 35, 56, 57, 78, 143, 147, 155, 157 n.1 visual methods  6, 123 washing up  35, 37, 39, 51 weight and embodiment  16, 18, 20, 30, 40, 47, 73, 130 West of Scotland 11 to 16 Study  16, 156 work-life balance  1, 150

184

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186

187

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