A Summary of "The Problem of Changing Food Habits"

In "The Problem of Changing Food Habits" Margaret Mead develops the importance of using both pure and applied sciences in order to understand what foods we choose to eat. The information that literature and recorded experiments contain must be taken into account. With a scientific background of data on a number of diet topics including studies of historically changing diets, as well as animal experiments in individual taste and preference and their relation to nutritional value. The goal is to take previous knowledge (the pure science) and integrate this information so that one can apply science and come up with a way to solve this issue of changing food habits.

Mead points out that there is a lot of research explaining the reasoning behind our diet choices. For instance, our social situations can affect our eating habits. We can consume more types of food under different types of pressure, such as, advertising or even wartime shortages. Food habits have been seen as a "culturally standardized set of behaviors," like a set of acceptable rules, within each society. It is hard to take away food traditions even when they are unhealthy because they have been widely accepted for many years. Food habits are learned while we are children and thus we can have a deeper emotional connection with the foods of our culture. In order to change these food habits, Mead says we must understand every aspect of the eating process for each culture. This includes how the community seeks and accepts food, the fears that keep them from eating other foods, the situations in which they share food, and how they feel about changes to their traditional food.

It is very important to understand all aspects of the problem before moving forward with recommendations (the applied science). Thus the more data we have on food behaviors the easier it will be to integrate current supplies with traditional food patterns. Each culture eats differently and so each solution will be different. Mead argues that we can't just broadly ask "how do we change food habits?" but rather be specific to each subculture (in America). For example, " How can we change the food habits of southern sharecroppers whose habits are tied to a one crop method of production?" Nutritional information will be more effective if not only science is applied but also education and communication is used to link the daily habits of people. Also food habit changes will be more willingly followed out if there is responsibility on the part of those who plans meals for others to eat.