Food Choice, Health, and Inequality
SOCIOL 1218
Subject & Catalog Number
Course Information
Description
Food and diet-related health have become a pressing topic in research, policy and public discourse. This concern stems in part from the fact that disadvantaged groups tend to have poorer diets than their more advantaged peers. In order to understand socioeconomic and racial disparities in diet quality, we will examine how people’s food choice is related to their material resources, to their social circumstances, and to the meaning that they attach to—and derive from—food. Additionally, we will consider how the public imagines that disadvantaged people eat and how these ideas themselves relate to social inequalities. In addressing these issues, we will consider several core questions: 1) How do patterns of food consumption reflect existing inequalities?, 2) How do patterns of food consumption contribute to social inequalities?, 3) How do cultural constructions of what people eat compound these inequalities?, and 4) How might we reduce food-related inequalities? While these questions focus on food, they will help us to think about structure, culture, agency, identity, and stigma more generally.
Course Notes
Course taught by Dr. Caitlin Daniel
Available for Harvard Cross Registration
