Food choice and school meals: primary schoolchildren's perceptions of the healthiness of foods and the nutritional implications of food choices

Since the 1980 Education Act, school caterers have been operating within a commercial context and therefore can only provide the foods that they know that children will eat. At the same time, nutritionists have been concerned that the greater degree of choice that children now have at lunchtime is resulting in the more frequent consumption of meals of poor nutritional quality. A knowledge of children's food preferences, the factors influencing them, and their perceptions of the healthiness of foods is needed if school caterers and those involved in nutrition education are to work together to help children choose a nutritionally balanced meal. This paper reports on children's perceptions of the healthiness or otherwise of foods commonly served at school lunches and the reasons for these perceptions. Children's knowledge of the sources of nutrients, their understanding of the relationship between food and health, and how their perceptions of healthiness relate to their preferences for the foods are also explored. The nutritional implications of food choices made by primary school children on the basis of preference rather than healthiness are examined. One hundred and twenty three children aged between nine and eleven from 14 different primary schools in SouthEast England took part. Using photographs of foods commonly served at school lunches, the children were asked to rank the foods in order of preference and then according to their perceptions of the healthiness of the foods and give their reasons in each case. The rankings were analysed numerically and the Wilcoxon's pairs signed rank test was used to determine the significance of the difference. The qualitative data on the reasons given for the rankings were analysed by assigning them to categories. The children were also asked which foods they would choose for the meal that they would be most likely to eat, and which ones for the meal that they thought would be the most healthy. The nutritional value of the two sets of meals were determined and compared. A student T- test was used to determine the significance of any difference between the two sets of meals.It was found that the children had a clear perception of the healthiness or otherwise of the foods. However, understanding of the relationship between foods or nutrients and health was only occasionally evident, as was the idea of moderation or balance. Some children perceived healthiness as the absence of fat while others saw it in terms of the presence of vitamins. It was also found that there was a strongly inverse relationship between children's perceptions of the healthiness of foods and their preferences for them. It was found that while the foods chosen for the ‘healthy’ meal were chosen least frequently for the ‘preferred’ meal, there was no significant difference between the percentage of energy provided by fat in the two sets of meals. However the ‘preferred’ meals did in fact provide a significantly higher percentage of the energy as starch, as well as containing greater amounts of some micronutrients. In other respects the ‘healthy’ meals were indeed ‘healthier’, in that they provided greater amounts per megajoule of some important nutrients.It was concluded that teaching about food in primary schools needs to focus on helping children of this age make balanced food choices. It was suggested that the ‘tilted plate’ model, adapted to use foods that children frequently eat and enjoy, could be the basis of such teaching. Such a model could also be used to help caterers plan menus and as the basis of co-operation between nutrition educators and caterers.     

I Want to eat out,but something holding me back: Mom’s cooking stress and family dining out constraints

Restaurant visits have been declined in the past decades while preparing the meals at home has been increased. This study focuses on mother customers who are known as the leading providers of homemade meals and primary decision-makers in family dining out in the context of family dining. The purpose of the study is to examine (1) what issue related to home cooking causes mothers to dine out with family, (2) what keeps them from dining out, and (3) the relationship of their psychological influences (i.e., cooking stress, need for reward, desire to dine out, and dining out constraints) that occur within the family dining decision-making process. With a total of 644 mothers in the U.S, the findings reveal that the mother participants who are stressed out from cooking for their family seek a self-gifted reward for their daily effort and desire to dine out to escape from the burden of cooking duty, which leads them to participate in family dining. However, despite the dining desire, mothers also face the reasons to constrain dining out (i.e., interpersonal and intrapersonal constraints), and both constraints keep them from family dining out. The results of this study are expected to help family restaurants develop a healthful family dining environment and new strategies to entice mothers and family customers to visit family dining restaurants.     

The use and acceptability of convenience and fast-foods in the food service industry in Scotland

A questionnaire was circulated at random to six sectors of the catering industry in Scotland. The types of convenience foods used, frequency of use, relative importance of several processing factors and customers' views of catering establishments were studied. Some fifteen ideas for ‘new’ products are listed, the main requirement being for higher quality products at lower cost. Most caterers feel that customers mainly look for value for money and good presentation.     

Understanding culinary tourist motivation,experience, satisfaction,and loyalty using a structural approach

Research on culinary tourism lacks an empirical examination of the relationship between motivation, experience, satisfaction, and loyalty. Drawing on the extant literature, this paper examines the relationships between antecedents and outcomes of culinary tourist participation in cooking classes using a structural equation modelling approach. Based on a convenience sample of 300 international tourists at cooking schools in Chiang Mai, Thailand, the structural model confirmed direct and indirect interrelationships among four main constructs of the study. It was found that culinary tourists’ motivation positively influences both the culinary experience and satisfaction; and that the culinary tourist experience is positively associated with both culinary tourist satisfaction and loyalty, suggesting that the more tourists are motivated to participate in cooking classes, the more experiential value and satisfaction are perceived. Moreover, the more experiences encountered at the cooking class, the more satisfied and loyal the tourists become. Understanding the key motivators and elements of satisfaction in cooking classes can contribute to the achieving of sustainable destination loyalty. The findings are relevant to Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) as part of developing sustainable strategies that are in line with specific culinary needs and experiences of cooking class participants.     

Culinary tourism as living history: staging,tourist performance and perceptions of authenticity in a Thai cooking school

This study examined how a cooking school in Thailand acted as a site of living history in its staging and touristic experience of authenticity. The cooking school was one of the oldest, most visited and most comprehensively “staged” cooking schools in Bangkok. Research focused on understanding: (a) the nature of spatial and temporal staging of authenticity in the school, (b) tourists’ perceptions of authenticity and (c) parallels between the cooking school and living heritage sites. Findings showed that the cooking school was carefully designed to transport tourists from the heterogeneous tourist spaces of present-day Bangkok to the idealized, enclavic space of an imagined Thai culinary past. Tourists took on multiple roles, had rich sensory experiences, felt a sense of play and space–time transcendence, and revelled in close social relations with hosts and other tourists. These factors allowed them to experience multiple forms of both modernist and post-modernist authenticity. In its scenography, interpretative performance, narrative and rituals, the cooking school did indeed resemble a living history site. However, the school made no particular claim to expertise in Thai history, place or culinary culture, and tended more towards touristic entertainment, and less towards accurate historical and cultural visitor education.     

Travel as a Life Priority?

This paper adopts a different approach to understand non- or infrequent travel. Most research is grounded in constraints theory, and assumes that once constraints are removed, people will travel. Yet, in spite of efforts by the industry to remove obstacles to participation, travel propensity rarely exceeds three-quarters of the population of developed economies. This paper tests the idea that tourism may simply not be a high enough priority for some people to engender travel, while for others it may be seen as being more important. The study evaluated where travel ranks within a set of 13 other activities. People who rated travel as being important or very important to them, consistently rated it as being a higher priority than most of the activities studied. Those who rated travel as being unimportant or of little importance placed it as a lower priority activity. The findings challenge the traditional constraints theory.     

Country image of gastronomy and branding Hawker Culture: Local consumers' perception

This study examined local food diners' perceptions of gastronomy—composed of food, country image, and culture—in Singapore, a city-state. This study successfully identified the country image associated with gastronomy by adopting the concept of UNESCO Creative Cities of Gastronomy and explored the impact of country image on the local diners' perception of Hawker Culture as a country brand, based on the brand resonance model. Image factors (food outlets and restaurants, food activities, education and training, and local ingredients and cooking skills) were explored. The perceived facets of the country were linked to awareness, which in turn stimulated the love for Hawker Culture in forming loyalty. This research provides discernments to rejuvenate and promote Singapore as a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy, which will pave the way for the continuous support of Hawker Culture from residents as a notable cultural icon.     

Digital Negotiation: Online Leisure in Coping with Gender Stereotypes

This study aimed at exploring whether cyberspace and the anonymity it provides can be useful in coping with leisure constraints that originate in gender stereotypes. The study was based on a survey that measured perceptions of parallel online and offline forms of masculine, feminine, and gender neutral leisure activities among 240 Internet users belonging to one of two age groups: adolescents and seniors. Findings indicated that offline feminine activities were perceived as more suitable for both genders in their online form. By contrast, the offline leisure activities labeled masculine were still perceived as such in their online form, with older participants even considering them more masculine in that mode. These findings suggest that online leisure plays a dual role, rendering activities more accessible to men of all ages but further discriminating against older women. It seems to broaden age and gender disparities and perpetuates power relations inherent in patriarchal societies.     

A family affair? Exploring the influence of childhood sport socialisation on young adults’ leisure-sport careers in north-west England

Based on interviews conducted with 19 young adults aged 30–35-years-old living in north-west England, this paper examines the features of childhood sport socialisation that typically precede high levels of leisure-sport participation in adulthood. The evidence suggests that the extent to which respondents were invested with different experiences of sport socialisation by their parents was influenced by financial and transport constraints, whether parents had themselves participated in sport, and the extent of parental encouragement. Those with the highest levels of adulthood participation tended to have two sports active parents who encouraged them to participate in leisure-sport, typically for enjoyment and the ‘love' of sport, and who experienced fewer financial and transport constraints than other parents. These respondents were also more likely, to have inherited sporting habituses and values from both parents who were in turn more able, and likely to purposively invest their offspring with different resources during childhood as an aspect of family-based leisure relationships. The evidence suggests, however, that each of the identified features of childhood sport socialisation are necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for promoting high levels of leisure-sport participation during adulthood. Finally, the article concludes that sport policies may help raise the overall level of participation among the population, but frequent, and perhaps more health promoting, participation may remain confined to a minority who benefited from the required kind of sports socialisation in their childhood families.     

基于不同用途的菜肴制作差异比较——以“松鼠鱼”为例

菜肴在制作上有一个相对统一的标准,但也不是一成不变的。要根据制作菜肴的目的,调整菜肴的制作工艺。基于菜肴的用途不同,以"松鼠鱼"为例,对"松鼠鱼"在营业型、展示型、比赛型、拍照型、考试型等几种类型中采取的不同制作方法进行了比较分析。     

How does family influence the travel constraints of solo travelers? Construct specification and scale development

ABSTRACT

Attracting the solo travel market is increasingly important for destination marketing organizations. Despite the wealth of literature on travel motivations of solo travelers, a related domain of research that deserves more attention are the travel constraints that could hinder solo traveling. More specifically, although solo travelers may wish to embark on a journey alone, they must nevertheless address a number of constraints that oftentimes stem from their family’s concerns for them as family represents a critical influencer that could impact their travel decision. Yet, research measuring the influence of family remains under-studied. In order to address this gap, this study connects knowledge on travel constraints with literature on family dynamics to develop a valid and reliable measurement scale for assessing family pressures on solo travelers. Destination marketers can apply this scale to evaluate the effectiveness of their marketing strategies at easing the concerns of solo travelers as a result of family pressures.     

“I am so ashamed of my body”: Obese guests’ experiences in hotels

The hotel experience of obese people is examined in this exploratory study, addressing a segment of the population thus far ignored by hospitality scholars. The findings are based on 32 semi-structured interviews with American obese men and women living in the Virginia area. The results revealed that almost all participants’ hotel experience was affected by constraints arising from the physical environment, but more so, from other guests gazing at them. The thematic analysis of the experiences of obese hotel guests suggest that two relevant spaces in the hotel can be distinguished: the guest room and the public space accessible to all guests. These spaces differ in the difficulties experienced as well as the emotions that evoked among those guests. Overall, the findings indicate that people’s body and its image is crucial for the understanding of the hotel experience, as lookism is a critical barrier obese people face.     

Uncovering the critical drivers of solo holiday attitudes and intentions

In response to the growing solo travel market, this study developed a research instrument and collected empirical data to uncover the motivations and constraints affecting solo travel. Using a conceptual model based on the theory of planned behaviour and the findings of qualitative interviews, the main drivers of solo travel intention and the importance between the drivers were tested through a national survey conducted in Australia. Results revealed that (1) self-actualisation emerged as the most significant motivation for solo travel, (2) attitude was negatively associated with intrapersonal and interpersonal constraints, and (3) interpersonal constraints, followed by perceived behavioural control and overall attitude, were prominent in predicting behavioural intention. The findings offer a validated solo travel model for future research and have implications for tourism marketing strategies and products targeting existing and latent solo travellers.     

Globalisation,airline alliances and tourism: A strategic perspective

The forces driving globalisation have impelled the majority of international airlines to enter into strategic alliance arrangements. Strategic alliances have enabled airlines to work around structural problems of the industry, particularly foreign ownership restrictions, national regulatory constraints and constraints on building up networks. The history of alliances, to date, shows them to be changing and unstable. Alliances will probably continue to be a feature of the international airline industry, but the forms and membership of alliances may well change further in the future. Further deregulation and liberalisation of the industry could mean that alliances become less important in the future, if deregulation allows mergers and acquisitions of airlines across national borders. Two scenarios of possible futures are presented, with an assessment of their impacts on tourism, as an aid to strategic analysis.     

Emerging Adults with Chronic Illness Pursuing and Enhancing Leisure

The purpose of this study is to develop an understanding of the adjustment process undertaken by emerging adults living with a chronic illness in their pursuit and enjoyment of leisure. A theoretical focus is placed on the processes of selection, optimization, and compensation. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 27 participants who have a chronic illness. Participants’ experiences were rooted much more in triumph rather than loss. Selection was influenced by a consideration of uncertainty, a desire to avoid potential embarrassment, and an acceptance or rejection of constraints. Three types of approaches that helped them optimize their leisure experience involved participants shaping their perspectives about leisure and life, enhancing resources to make leisure possible, and by living through pain and discomfort. Responding to challenges that might otherwise limit their participation or enjoyment in leisure, participants prepared for possible incidents, received support from others, and confronted negative situations.     

Examining the child’s impacts on single mothers’ leisure

With the majority of research on the experiences of single mothers focusing on motherhood as an inhibiting constraint to leisure, it is important to examine the ways in which motherhood might also enable the obtainment of a satisfactory leisure lifestyle. Our study employed a Foucauldian approach to understand constraints to leisure, in that we view constraints as always both inhibiting and enabling action. The purpose of this study was to explore three single mothers’ leisure experiences prior to and since becoming single mothers to identify the ways in which their child(ren) enables leisure practices as opposed to merely constraining them. The participants presented evidence of how their child(ren) altered both their priorities and their leisure preferences by providing them with opportunities to broaden their leisure experiences. Our research findings challenge dominant discourses that suggest that children can act only to inhibit leisure.     

A preliminary study of chefs’ attitudes and knowledge of healthy eating in Edinburgh's restaurants

This article details the findings of a preliminary study carried out in Edinburgh restaurants producing representations of chefs’ attitudes to healthy eating. Despite a lack of awareness of government targets and promotions aimed at the Hospitality industry, chefs were positive towards healthy eating and believe that they were already practising it. They perceive their role as being multi-faceted from deferential service provider to educator and artist relying mainly upon their own inspiration when creating menus. Tension between commercial goals and moral principles was evident by the fact that customers were perceived as the main barrier and equally the main reason to offer healthy options on the menu.     

CONCEPTUALIZING INTENTION TO TAKE A VACATION FORM TO UNDERSTAND NONCUSTOMERS

Understanding current noncustomers has been argued to be a key to sustainable success. In this study, a conceptual model is developed based on models and theories on destination image/choice, leisure constraints, and goal‐directed behavior to enhance our understanding about current noncustomers. It is proposed that by examining how the main drivers of nonchoice behavior are related to perceptions of performing a given behavior (e.g., taking a particular vacation form) or perceived constraints (e.g., lack of time or money), would assist tourism businesses and destination managers in developing markets in an innovative way beyond focusing on competition.     

To be or to refuse to be? Exploring the concept of leisure as resistance for young people who are visually impaired

This study explored the concept of leisure as resistance to social constraints of blindness. Leisure, because of its relative freedoms, has been conceptualised as a forum in which dominant cultural discourses and stereotypes can be challenged or resisted. A post-structural analysis of the leisure narratives of five young people who are blind revealed that they intentionally used aspects of leisure to resist some constraints and stereotypes of disability. Three strategies were identified: advocacy, redefinition and passing. Advocacy targeted other people’s beliefs; yet, some activities done to resist dominant discourses actually perpetuated them. Redefinition was a covert strategy to show themselves that they could be the same as everyone else. Passing was used in different ways. One young person used it when advocating, another to maintain social connections. However, maintaining social connections by passing was often at the cost of enjoyment, engagement and perceptions of ability. Empowerment through resistance in leisure related primarily to gains in self-confidence. These gains in self-confidence have the potential to contribute to social interactions and perhaps influence some of the discourses that operate as ‘truths’ about people who are blind.     

Old bodies,young hearts: a qualitative exploration of the engagement of older male amateur rugby union players in Taiwan

The world’s population is ageing. Engagement in physical activities that assist people to age in good health while enjoying quality of life are critical considerations for practitioners and policy-makers. In 1913, the sport of Rugby Union was introduced to Taiwan. As a form of recreational activity, the game became popular among- Taiwanese males. In recent years, older players have sought to facilitate their continued involvement in an activity that is normally played as a full-contact sport. Why these individuals continue to play, how they perceive their experience and how the sport has evolved to maintain their interest and active involvement are especially interesting to explore. Study participants were specifically chosen from an established Taiwanese rugby union club. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted in 2013 with 15 amateur rugby players aged from 54 to 83 years. Results indicated that the main motivations for participants to continue playing was that it gave them ‘a sense of nostalgia and pride’, ‘lifelong friendship and belonging’, ‘pure joy and passion’, with considerations of being ‘mentally and physically active’, keeping up an involvement in ‘a real man’s sport’ and maintaining a sense of one’s ‘self-identity’ with ‘responsibility and commitment’ towards this chosen sport. Findings suggest that leisure providers need to be aware of the opportunities for reducing constraints and providing adaptations that allow older adults to immerse themselves in physically active pursuits integral to enjoying a fruitful ageing journey.