80 The Meaning of Food
humans because they are not natural, but neither can we eat animals which
we have let into our civilized world.
In summary, meat holds a privileged position in the diet of many
people, either as the central food to their meals or as the food to be avoided.
Fiddes (1990) argued this centrality is due to the symbolic nature of meat
which represents the power that human beings have over nature and
indicates they are cultured, civilized, and no longer part of the natural world.
Food, therefore, is a communicative act concerning culture, and reflects a
religious identity, a statement of social power, and a delineation of the
cultural world and nature.
Measuring Beliefs About the Meaning of Food
Much of the research to date described above has explored the meaning
of food using qualitative methods involving observational studies or inter-
views. In a recent study, Ogden et al. (in press) developed a measure to
quantitatively assess people’s beliefs about the meaning of food and to explore
gender differences in these beliefs and their impact on eating behavior.
The new scale consisted of 25 items with 8 subscales describing food and
sex, emotional regulation, treat, guilt, social interaction, control over life,
control over food, and family. The results showed that whereas men showed
greater endorsement of food and sex as an important meaning of food,
women showed greater endorsement of all other subscales. In addition, the
results showed that dieting was predicted by stronger beliefs about food
and control and food and guilt and that body dissatisfaction was predicted
by food and guilt and food and emotional regulation. It was argued that
this scale either could be used in clinical practice to assess the ways in which
people with eating-related problems think about food or could be used in
research to assess the ways in which beliefs about the many meanings of
food impact upon behavior and subsequent body weight.
Conclusion
Food choice occurs within a complex set of meanings. Some research
exploring the meaning of food has described a deep underlying classifica-
tion system which is relevant across all cultures. Other research has
analyzed eating as a communicative act providing a statement of the self,