Psychology of Eating

Our fascination with eating and drinking behaviours and their causes has resulted in a huge industry of food-related pop science. Every bookstore and magazine stand is filled with publications promising to get your child to eat his vegetables, to tell you if someone you know has an eating disorder, or to show you how to lose weight. But the degree to which any of these works is based on scientific research is very limited: the information offered is at best incomplete and often simply incorrect. However, in contrast to this popular literature, the scientific research on eating and drinking behaviours is usually too technical for the general reader. Alexandra Logue's The Psychology of Eating and Drinking, Third Edition, is unique in being a textbook that can also be comprehended by the educated general reader. The first two editions, published by W.H. Freeman & Co. in 1985 and 1991, have become staples in undergraduate and graduate courses on eating and drinking behaviour, as well as in psychology of motivation courses; the publisher estimates that the second edition sold 10,000 copies. As in her past editions of this book, Logue grounds her investigation into the complex interactions between our physiology, our surroundings, and our eating and drinking habits in laboratory research and up-to-date scientific information. But while the chapter topics in the new edition have remained essentially the same, the book has been completely rewritten. The material within each chapter has been reorganized, updated, and written in a more accessible style designed to appeal more directly to the general reader. Detailed methodological material has been removed and additional examples and a lighter, more personal tone has been added. Without sacrificing the utility of the text for students, Logue has succeeded in providing the lay reader with a biological and psychological framework within which to understand his or her eating behaviours.

Food, Morals and Meaning examines our need to discipline our desires, our appetites and our pleasures at the table. However, instead of seeing this discipline as dominant or oppressive it argues that a rationalisation of pleasure plays a positive role in our lives, allowing us to better understand who we are.The book begins by exploring the way that concerns about food, the body and pleasure were prefigured in antiquity and then how these concerns were recast in early Christianity as problems of 'natural' appetite which had to be curbed. The following chapters discuss how scientific knowledge about food was constructed out of philosophical and religious concerns about indulgence and excess in 18th and 19th Century Europe. Finally, by using research collected from in-depth interviews with families, the last section focuses on the social organisation of food in the modern home to illustrate the ways that the meal table now incorporates the principles of nutrition as a form of moral training, especially for children.Food, Morals and Meaning will be essential reading for those studying nutrition, public health, sociology of health and illness and sociology of the body.Key Features:^l * Health sociology is a rapidly growing subject area

Using dietary information and other pertinent facts, the author assesses the nutritional status of Americans during each historical period. Special emphasis is given to American dietary patterns from the landfall of Columbus to the colonial period, the revolutionary period, the New Republic, and the 20th century. Four categories of American food are identified and analyzed: mainstream cuisine, regional cooking, "regional phenomena" (including ethnic foods), and "Pop" foods. The overview concludes with the finding that, despite delightful differences, there are striking similarities in food habits across time and cultures. By providing increased insights and understanding of contemporary American eating patterns, this book will be a substantive addition to existing texts.

Combining feminist anthropology and theory with culinary history, Catherine Manton examines the place of food in women's history, with a particular emphasis on the life and changing roles of the American woman and her self-image.