Bad diet kills. But where do bad diets come from? Food performs many functions beyond those pertaining to simple nutrition; it is always culturally elaborated. In our population the cultural practices surrounding eating spoke eloquently of two requirements poor people placed on food. The first was the expectation that it should give comfort. Under conditions of financial poverty and environmental and cultural deprivation, food was one of few items which people could look to for some guaranteed release from the general stresses. The foods which are selected as most effective for this task contain high quantities of the dieticians’ unfavourite ingredients: fat, salt, sugar, and artificial additives [78]. The second requirement was that it should be convenient, both to prepare and to eat. One aspect of this convenience was a widespread preference for food which could be accessed individually by the different members of the household; frequently people seemed to eat what they like when they liked. This included children, who were often referred to as learning to ‘fend for themselves’ with regard to meeting their household needs. A second, related aspect of food’s convenience was being able to be served with a minimum of required resources. The ‘traditional’ meal cooked from raw ingredients to be served to a family group around a table is yielding before the convenience of the microwave, the preference for sofas over tables (some households don’t have tables), and the attraction of the TV/video [79]. Take-aways are the extreme convenience food, as well as scoring high on comfort value. In other respects they are far from ideal – but these effects operate in the longer run.
One woman acknowledged that she was both overweight and a comfort eater.
27 We eat soups. A lot of soup, and meat. They get sweets after a meal. I don’t know why it is, but [son, 3] is always happier when he’s got sweets. I think he must be a kind of diabetic in reverse, he needs to have sugar. I know I could do to lose weight, but I don’t try hard enough and I’d say I was a comfort eater. I eat as well as I can, but I can’t afford to eat as well as I’d like to. Well, I suppose I could buy the best of everything, if I cut out the junk. (Single mother, 40)
With younger women, one professional had observed what happened when the imperatives of image (requiring weight control) came into conflict with the pleasure principle: a diet skewed towards high-impact, low-value foods. Their babies could also suffer from their lack of respect for high value foods.
20 Most of them don’t eat properly. They are all very conscious about weight and a lot of their behaviour about food is to do with weight control. There is a healthy meal available free at lunch times but most of them refuse that and will go to the tuck shop in the afternoon and have a couple of packets of crisps and a Mars bar and a can of juice. The pleasure principle is everything. They want it, they like it, they’ll have it. It’s the same with the way they feed the babies, giving them crisps, “aw, but they like it”. They can’t see something like that doing any harm so it must be OK.
Ease is the other factor which seems to dictate what you do. A tin of spaghetti bolognaise is the path of least resistance when it comes to feeding the baby, so that’s what you do. (education service)
The above pattern seems to be based on good observation; it is confirmed by three young mothers, the first of 17, the second and third of 19.
31 I cook sometimes, but mostly I just make something for [son, 2]. I usually eat when he is in his bed, so I get peace.
Yesterday, I had: No breakfast
Soup for dinner.
No tea, since I was working
I had toast when I got to my mum’s to pick up [son, 2] about 9 o’clock. I had a couple of packets of crisps during the day and some chocolate for my break at my work. I drink diet coke all the time and that fills me up. He doesn’t eat much either, maybe cereal for breakfast, soup for lunch and ham or a sandwich for tea. He gets a snack at nursery, fruit or something; but he won’t eat things like that at home.
38 We like toast, chicken pies, soup, things like that. He [son, 7 months] still eats the tins and packets, so he’s no bother. We’re not keen on veg or stuff and I tried him on a banana, but he just spits it out, so I’m not wasting it on him
37 I don’t eat, you ken. I canny be bothered. I try to make a dinner for [partner], mostly we just have chips or toast. I give her (7 months) the tins and packets, she loves the chocolate pudding.
And by this social worker.
40 Nobody cooks anyway. They all “eat on the hoof” – pies, crisps, that kind of thing. If you talk to young folk they tell you that no one cooks, nothing that involves ingredients anyway. It’s all things that come ready-made, or unhealthy things, sausages, mince, fried eggs, hamburgers, pizzas. On the other hand folk won’t eat anything else; mums wouldn’t bother to cook if kids won’t eat it, they give them what they know the kids will eat. Once we do things like cooking – we let them make things and they all sit down to eat – they can be persuaded to eat what they’ve made, and they enjoy it, they’re proud of what they’ve made.
JW: You mentioned that food was unhealthy. Where does health come in to all this?
Nobody thinks about health. It doesn’t come into people’s lives at all. Young folk never talk about it – some girls will talk about their weight, but that’s it.
JW Are girls dieting then?
Not what I would call seriously dieting – but they just have the usual obsession with being thin – even when they’re not fat.
Even when the mother seems to have eaten relatively well, the baby could still get the soup and crisps.
32 I look after myself if that’s what you mean, that’s what health is about, isn’t it. You need to eat well, exercise and get enough sleep.
I mostly have frozen things for myself, because that’s easier, I sometimes have a dinner at my mum, cabbage or potatoes, something like that. He [son, 7 months] likes soup, I give him things like a tin of soup with bread in for his dinner and I can have the rest. Most of what he has are the baby jars and packets. He still has his bottles of course and he gets snacks, crisps, a biscuit or a banana. I never go to the dentist, but I would take him, when he’s got teeth. I don’t know if they are very keen on seeing wee ones, I’ve heard a few folk say that. (single mother, 20)
Children’s resistances to individual foods could be a problem to a mother who had some knowledge of the more desirable dietary intake for children. Under such conditions subterfuges were resorted to.
26 I try to help the boys [3 years and 18 months] be healthy, I give them lots of fruit and veg. They don’t eat much veg, but I balance that by limiting the sweets that they get. I always give them plenty of fibre, I give them fish fingers because that is protein and I give them beans with it for the fibre. At home we used to get fish fingers for a treat, my Mum didn’t realize that it is actually good for you. We used to get things like mince, it was always a meat and two veg tea.
My boys won’t eat potatoes so I give them low fat oven chips, I think they are just as good. They eat home-made soup so I put plenty tatties in that and they’ll eat stovies. I eat with the kids because I think it is important for them. We don’t have a table like we did at home, we don’t have the room, but we set the bench in the kitchen and we eat there. (single mother, 27)
Less than desirable dietary habits had even come to the notice of a police officer, who also attributed some of them to ease-seeking by the parents.
42 I think that a lot of problems could be reduced if people paid more attention to what they ate.
You see children with coke in the [feeding] bottle, they think that will be better than giving the baby tea or coffee. The intention is good in so many ways, but it’s often driven by ease for the parents. A lot of children seem to be taking care of themselves. I’ve heard of people giving methadone to the baby to get it to sleep, or giving the baby Calpol to help it sleep. These are just modern day equivalents of the whisky in the bottle of days gone by. (police officer)
Once again, it had been noticed that the market did not provide what people did not want to eat, and vice-versa.
11 One of the things that concerns me about health is just how unhealthy a lot of the food is, you don’t just get fish and chips, it’s spam fritters and chips, everything is so fatty. You see people buying fritter rolls, none of the schemes that I know of has a greengrocer, but I bet you could buy a fritter roll in all of them. You see the school-kids with deep fried pizza for their lunch, everything comes with added fat, done in batter. (Youth worker)
