Company and meal choices considered by Nordic adolescents

This article examines the meal choices considered by Nordic adolescents in two social situations: for themselves and for the family. In addition, the frequency of family meals is compared between the countries studied. The survey data (n = 1539) were collected during 2006–2007 from 9th grade students (aged 14–17 years) in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Analysis was based on both quantitative variables and open‐ended data. Family meals were found to be less common among Finnish respondents than in the remaining data. In all countries but Denmark, the number of parents in the family had an effect on the frequency of family meals. Meals echoing or fully meeting the structural definition of a ‘proper meal’ were most common when describing meals for the family. The difference between the two social situations was most apparent for those who mentioned ‘Fast food dishes’ for themselves. Gender differences in open‐ended questions were smallest in Denmark and most apparent in Norway. Future studies should focus not only on how many of adolescents eat in what is termed an unhealthy way but also on how they themselves perceive and conceptualize eating, and what kinds of justifications they give to their everyday choices in different social contexts.     

Swedish preschool children's experience of food

Focus group interviews were carried out at 12 preschools. The aim was to investigate children's perceptions and experiences of food, and the possibility of using focus group techniques with children aged 3–5 years. A total of 103 children participated. The children associated food and eating with rules and norms. Most children described these rules and norms as well as what they were and were not allowed to do. They knew very well the difference between acceptable and non‐acceptable mealtime behaviour, and were especially aware of what they were not allowed to do. When children were asked to rate foods they ‘disliked’, they spoke instead about their favourite foods. They did not categorize food as good or bad, as adults often do, but as ‘food’ and ‘non‐food’, for example, sweets were not food. The method used in this study, the focus group interview, was judged to be a useful tool for exploring how children think about and jointly reflect upon food.     

Pre‐school staffs’ attitudes toward foods in relation to the pedagogic meal

The aim of this study, with the pedagogic meal in focus, was to identify pre‐school staff members’ attitudes to the role of food and meals as part of daily activities at pre‐school. Interviews were carried out at 12 pre‐schools and a total of 34 pre‐school staff participated. The staff revealed strong opinions as well as ambivalence towards how food and meals should best be integrated into their daily work and pedagogic activities. The pre‐school staffs’ lack of or insufficient education and knowledge regarding food and nutrition resulted in an ambivalent and uncertain situation with respect to how they should see themselves as teachers in the meal situation. Nevertheless, most of the staff had a clear perception of what it meant to practice a pedagogic meal. It meant helping and encouraging the children to help themselves and serving as an adult model for the children at table, though this pedagogic activity was uncommon. While the staff were satisfied with the pre‐schools’ role of catering for the children, they expressed concern about or even mistrust towards the children's parents. Despite, or perhaps due to, their inadequate knowledge about food and nutrition and the lack of specific aims for the pedagogic meal, they assumed that the public sector was a better educational institution regarding foods and a better guarantor for children's food habits and dietary intake. As the teachers’ identities have changed over the past years they have not yet found a solid ground for determining how food and meals could be integrated into their everyday work as pre‐school teachers and childminders.     

Children's understanding of food and meals in the foodscape at school

Children come into contact with food in different places and contexts, i.e. ‘foodscapes’. The aim of the paper was to study what knowledge children construct regarding food and meals in the foodscape at school and how they do so, focusing on the school meal context. Observations, interviews and focus group interviews were used. The children appropriated ideas and understandings from the adult world and society as a whole and used it among their peers in the school meal situation. This included the adoption of institutional commensality, the telling of stories about food, and the classification of foods in dichotomies.     

Repertoire of strategies used by French Canadian mothers living in Montreal to pressure their 10‐year‐old children to eat

This study is concerned with mothers’ use of strategies directed toward their 10‐year‐old children to pressure them to eat. The objective is to document the repertoire of strategies and their context of use. This child‐feeding practice is of interest because of its impact on the child's opportunities for the development of self‐control based on responsiveness to hunger and satiety cues. A total of 24 interviews and one focus group were conducted with French Canadian mothers. Data analyses reveal four major themes associated with the contexts in which pressure to eat were used: food purchasing, food preparation, meal service, food consumption. Strategies related to the context of food purchasing stress the importance of children's influence on family decisions. The strategies used at the time of preparation of meals illustrate the burden of tasks a mother takes on to ensure that her child consumes a particular food. With regard to meal service, very few strategies take into account the appetite of the child. Finally, the variety of strategies deployed at the time of consumption of foods supports the importance of informing parents of the undesirable effect of techniques associated with forcing the child to eat. Avenues for future research are presented.     

The impact of the meal situation on the consumption of ready meals

The context in which a meal is eaten is known to affect intake and choice of food. The purpose of this study was to investigate in what typical situations ready meals are consumed and if consumer demands vary according to different situations. With a market survey four typical ready meal eating situations were identified, and the respondent's ready meal consumption was shown to be affected by situational factors. In the different eating situations there were dissimilar reasons for consumption. Two ready meal eating situations were investigated in greater detail in order to establish what triggered the ready meal consumption in these situations. One of these meal situations proved to be convenience driven and the other time driven. A situation‐oriented approach is suggested for further ready meal product development.     

Hong Kong parents' perceptions of the transference of food preparation skills

Food preparation skills among young adults are associated with healthy food choices, better diets and a greater likelihood of an independent, healthy adult life. This study conducted in Hong Kong aimed to investigate parents' perceptions of cooking skills; to explore the transference of cooking skills in the home setting; to identify parents' expectations regarding the transference of cooking skills; and to inform the development of educational initiatives for developing healthy eating habits. A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect information of the subjects' cooking experience, attitudes about cooking skills, cooking habits at home, family meal habits, transference of cooking culture in the family and the factors influencing the choice of ingredients and cooking. It was administered to 1009 Hong Kong parents (of students aged between 11 and 18, studying in 15 secondary schools). The collected data were analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (version 12.0, SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) and cross‐tabulation analyses were used to compare the responses of the parents by gender, employment status and income. The results show that parents valued cooking as important life skills for both boys and girls. Parents generally perceived their cooking skills either good (41.9%) or mediocre (54.5%), yet children are rarely taught these skills in the home. Family meals prepared primarily with fresh ingredients are still an important part of the daily routine, and mothers are dominating the roles in food choice decision, cooking and buying the ingredients for family meals. Mothers and schools are expected to be the major channel to teach children cooking skills. Findings suggest that parents are well‐disposed towards providing food and nutrition education at home, but need more support (50% reported that home should be a primary support for learning cooking skills; 36% indicated that the school should have a responsibility to teach children to cook starting in elementary school). Schools may do well to collaborate with families in food literacy education initiatives. Developing individuals' cooking skills paves the way for long‐term health benefits and the well‐being of the local population.     

School lunch—Children’s space or teachers’ governmentality?

This article discusses social aspects of school lunches in Norway. How do 11‐year‐old students experience and perceive their packed lunches and lunch breaks and to what extent is the lunch break a space for children's sociality or an area for teachers’ governmentality? The study is based on 25 focus group discussions and drawing and writing assignments with 165 participants. A large proportion of the students expressed that they appreciated their packed lunches because they could decide for themselves what and how much to eat. Additionally, shortage of time and disturbance and noise in the classroom could ruin a good meal. The main issue that the students raised in relation to our question of sociality was with whom they could sit and eat their packed lunches. This finding underlines the importance of considering the emotional dimensions of eating and that commensal eating is not dependent on sharing the same food. The children experienced that the lunch break was governed by an adult agenda in which they had limited opportunities to create their own spaces.     

Materiality and family consumption: the role of the television in changing mealtime rituals

This interpretivist study contributes to our understanding of how materiality mediates everyday family life by exploring the role of material objects in changing family rituals. We show how the television acts as an agent of cultural change when intermixed with family mealtimes. Our findings present a conceptual framework to explain the ways in which family life is altering across four key areas, namely: (1) mealtime settings and practices; (2) type of food consumed; (3) family structure and membership; and (4) family values and identity. This analytical framework illustrates how technologies such as the television mediate family relationships and how technologies become progressively more embedded in everyday practices. Revealing a transfer of mealtime practices from the formal environment into the informal environment, and vice versa, our study shows how mealtime rituals are altered and changed in form when mediated by the television, but not ultimately abandoned.     

A study of the nutritional composition of primary school children's packed lunches and school meals

A survey of the nutritional composition of primary school children's packed lunches and school meals over I week in October 1990 was carried out in an inner-city school in Nottingham where the majority of children had free school meals and were therefore by definition from low-income families. Maximum, minimum and mean levels of energy, protein, fat, carbohydrate and dietary fibre were calculated from food composition tables, together with the proportions of the energy contributed by fat, carbohydrate and protein. There were very large differences in the ranges of protein (2.6–24.7 g), fat (10.0–55.3 g) and carbohydrate (33.7–160.9 g) in packed lunches compared to those from school meals (protein 23.3–81.9 g, fat 24.0–65.5g and carbohydrate 37.2–140.3) although the mean percentage of energy from fat was similar in the packed lunches compared to the school meals (43.1 vs. 42.7). The mean energy provided by the school meals was approximately 33% higher than that from packed lunches (2554 kJ vs. 3386 kJ). Whilst accurate food consumption measurements were not performed, observational studies of the children indicated that food was left uneaten, particularly with packed lunches where the crisps and chocolate were often eaten first and the sandwiches remained half-eaten or untouched.     

The impact of lifestyles and food knowledge on the food patterns of German children

The German youth is relatively well informed about healthy eating, but does not act in accordance with this knowledge. It is also known from empirical studies that there is an association between lifestyles, food knowledge and the eating patterns of older teenagers. However, is there a similar correlation in regard to younger children? This article shows results of a study addressing this issue by empirically investigating leisure time activities, food intake and food knowledge. The study conducted with 907 children, on average 12 years old, out of an urban region in northwest Germany using a written questionnaire, implies that food patterns and food knowledge have to be improved because they are – on average – only marginally acceptable. On this level, they are not in line with a healthy future. For the first time in Germany, food patterns and food knowledge of seventh grade pupils were analysed in relation to their lifestyles. The study revealed four lifestyles. One family‐oriented lifestyle and three non‐family oriented lifestyles: outdoor and sociable youth, culture‐oriented youth, and multimedia kids. The family‐oriented lifestyle influences the children's food patterns in a positive way; the three found non‐family‐oriented lifestyles lead to less preferable food patterns. The results imply that there is a phase of unhealthy food patterns at the beginning of the second life decade, which seems to be linked to the detachment from the parents and the gained independency, expressed by the first self‐chosen lifestyles. As lifestyles have such a vital influence on healthy eating, and family is no longer the place where children get their everyday competencies, school has to enable pupils to make healthier food and lifestyle choices.     

Effect of Preparation Time on the Minimum-Cost Diet

The implications on a minimum-cost diet of introducing meal preparation time are explored using a multiple criteria framework. Using a bicriterion method, the tradeoff between the money cost of home-cooked meals and the meal preparation time is empirically estimated with a set of 895 recipes popular in Hawaii. There is a clear tradeoff between cost and time in preparing home-cooked meals, and it is found that the minimum-cost diet is very sensitive to the meal pre-parer's value of time.     

Adolescent evening meal practices and attitudes toward the maternal role in evening meal preparation

The purpose of this study was to determine whether maternal employment is related to adolescent evening meal practices and to examine the attitudes of adolescents regarding the mother's role in evening meal preparation. A questionnaire was administered to 1,180 high school students in a suburban area of North Texas. Results indicated that maternal employment affects adolescent evening meals in the number of meals (i) offered per week, (ii) fully prepared by mother, and (iii) eaten away from home. Adolescent participation in meal preparation was higher for the employed group. Attitudes are different between the sexes and those with employed and unemployed mothers.     

Using photo interviews to explore children's food preferences

This methodological paper elaborates on the pitfalls and potentials for using participatory photo interviews that explore children's experiences with food. It aims to show how participatory photo interviews can give a deeper understanding of children's food preferences. Such knowledge will be useful to other researchers who wish to apply the method in social studies involving children and food. We studied 12 families comprising seven‐ and eight‐year‐old children and their parents to illustrate how this method can be used to identify and understand children's food preferences. The children took photographs over a one‐week period while eating family dinners at home and grocery shopping with their parents. The photos were then used to elicit information during separate in‐depth interviews. Qualitative data analysis software (NVivo 10) was used to content analyse the data. We found that participant photo interviews were a useful method for helping children to remember and describe the sensory, cognitive and affective situational associations of their meals. This approach helped to explore interesting aspects of children's preferences such as their response to raw vegetables, the importance of controlling and choosing meal ingredients and ambivalent food preferences. We discuss parental involvement during data collection as it represents one of the methodological pitfalls. Another limitation is the risk of sensitive information to be breached. We conclude that participatory photo interviews have potential for future food research involving children and may provide information difficult to elicit using other methods.     

What beliefs underlie decisions to buy groceries online?

Online grocery shopping has become increasingly popular in many countries due to Covid-19. Although there is plenty of research on consumer adoption and use of online grocery shopping, only a few studies focus on understanding the underlying beliefs of experienced buyers. Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour and following its recommendations, the present study set out to explore the actual beliefs that underlie attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control to buy groceries online among those who have been doing it regularly for a longer time. A structured qualitative approach, in this case an elicitation study, was applied to uncover the shared ideas, modal salient beliefs, among a group of experienced buyers (n = 14). The study found that time-saving and convenience, which for many meant avoiding the discomfort of in-store shopping, combined with assisted meal planning and simultaneous ordering were considered important for experienced online shoppers. This suggests that further assistance in the planning to order process may be welcome, including more proactive prompts and suggestions. The quality of perishable goods was still a concern after months of online shopping, along with a limited product range, which for some had meant less variation in meals. Suboptimal user interface and delivery-related inflexibility caused some concern. Retailers in the grocery business stand before major capital expenditure if they wish to expand their online offerings and services. The study at hand provides valuable initial insight into what drives consumer behaviour in this respect.     

The law and ethics of big data analytics: A new role for international human rights in the search for global standards

The Economist recently declared that digital information has overtaken oil as the world’s most valuable commodity. Big data technology is inherently global and borderless, yet little international consensus exists over what standards should govern its use. One source of global standards benefitting from considerable international consensus might be used to fill the gap: international human rights law. This article considers the extent to which international human rights law operates as a legal or ethical constraint on global commercial use of big data technologies. By providing clear baseline standards that apply worldwide, human rights can help shape cultural norms—implemented as ethical practices and global policies and procedures—about what businesses should do with their information technologies. In this way, human rights could play a broad and important role in shaping business thinking about the proper handling of this increasingly valuable commodity in the modern global society.     

Agency Theory,Reasoning and Culture at Enron: In Search of a Solution

Applying evidence from recently available public information on Enron, I defined Enron’s culture as one rooted in agency theory by asserting that Enron’s members were predominantly agency-reasoning individuals. I then identified conditions present at Enron’s collapse: a strong agency culture with collectively non-compliant norms, a munificent rare-failure environment, and new hires with little business ethics training. Turning to four possible antidotes (selection, objectivist integrity, integrity capacity, and stewardship reasoning) to an agency culture under these conditions, I argued that the currently available ethics literature would have made little difference toward averting Enron’s collapse if any of the recommendations from the relevant ethics literature had been implemented. I conclude by identifying new directions for business ethics literature in order to make it more implementable under the conditions identified at Enron. Essentially, we need a way to clearly determine (1) the difference between connivance and commitment, (2) what is meant by balance with regard to the multiple dimensions of ethics and legal theories, and (3) the proper balance between agency and stewardship reasoning. Brian E. Kulik is a Ph.D. candidate in Management at Washington State University’s School of Business. His work focuses on the prevention of corporate corruption, corporate governance and ethics, teamwork and diversity, and research methods. His research to date has appeared in the Western and National Academy of Management conference proceedings and the journal Organizational Analysis. He earned M.S. degrees from Washington State University and The University of Cincinnati, and M.B.A. from The University of Denver.     

Household norms and their role in reducing household electricity consumption

Researchers have only recently begun to investigate the role of the norms of the household or family group in energy‐efficiency decisions. These researchers have demonstrated that these norms can influence the behaviour and attitudes of children within the household. We contribute to their findings by providing a characterization of the use of household norms in household decisions about electricity efficiency. For our qualitative research, we conducted focus groups with three different household types: (1) share houses/young couples with no children; (2) households with children; and (3) empty nest/elderly households in three regional centres in New South Wales, Australia (total of 76 respondents in nine focus groups). Specifically, we found that household norms were evident in the decision‐making process through rules and expectations about behaviour and the use of sanctions to enforce or shaped that behaviour. We identified several drivers of household norms including a household member taking the role of ‘efficiency champion’ and the occurrence of critical incidents in the household. In addition, we found that household members try to establish household norms to socialize household members with the goal of the intergenerational transmission of desirable behaviours. Based on these observations, we conclude that household members employ norms to regulate and reduce their electricity consumption, and as a mechanism for consumer socialization. As such, our findings are important for marketers and policy makers tasked with regulating household consumption.     

Explaining the Role of Perceived Risk,Knowledge, Price,and Cost in Dry Fish Consumption Within the Theory of Planned Behavior

ABSTRACT

The general purpose of this study is to explore the influence of perceived risk, knowledge, price, and cost of dry fish consumption in Bangladesh using the general framework from the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The field experiments were performed in Bangladesh with a convenience sample of 558 respondents. Multiple regression analysis was used to investigate the relationship among perceived risk, knowledge, price, and cost and TPB constructs. The findings showed that attitude, norms, and procedural knowledge emerge as the key determinants of intention, whereas intention, attitude, norms, and perceived risk have effects on the dry fish consumption frequency. Perceived behavioral control, price, and cost had no significant effect on intention and consumption behavior. The proposed TPB and the extended model both fit the data well and proved the expectations of this study in a promising way. The study found that people are more concerned about potential long-term risk to their family and others. Therefore, management attention should focus on reducing risks which consumers may face through producing safe and hazard-free dry fish.