Food, the Body and the Self

by Deborah Lupton

In this wide-ranging and thought-provoking analysis of the sociocultural and personal meanings of food and eating, Deborah Lupton explores the relationship between food and embodiment, the emotions and subjectivity. She includes discussion of the intertwining of food, meaning and culture in the context of childhood and the family, as well the gendered social construction of foodstuffs; food tastes, dislikes and preferences; the dining-out experience; spirituality; and the `civilized′ body. She draws on diverse sources, including representations of food and eating in film, literature, advertising, gourmet magazines, news reports and public health literature, and her own empirical research into people′s preferences, memories, experiences

Genres: Food, Anthropology

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Gayle (OutsmartYourShelf) · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book which examines the history of our food and eating practices. Deborah Lupton tells us that food is liminal: it transcends the boundaries, not only of our bodies, but of our culture, and the author deals with the issues in detail. The book looks at the rituals of mealtimes, the rise of 'healthy' foods, our natural disgust towards certain foods, and the historical religious, and now secular, asceticism around food consumption. A must-read if you want to understand why food is so much more than just what we eat. Rating: 4 stars.

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am finishing a final cycling of reading for a new project on cities, fitness, health, bodies and digitization. The work of Deborah Lupton is integral to this final stage of research.

Her 1996 book, Food, the boy and the self, probes the historical dialectic of asceticism and consumption. There is attention to 'the disciplined feminine,' controlling body size as a proxy - a pretense - that women have control over their lives.

Well researched and theoretically rigorous, this book is highly recommended.