ISSN 0798 1015

Vol. 40 (Number 13) Year 2019. Page 19

Family feeding practices as a social reflection of capitalism era: time aspect

Las prácticas de alimentación familiar como reflejo social de la era capitalista: Aspecto temporal

SMELOVA, Alena A. 1

Received: 25/02/2019 • Approved: 29/03/2019 • Published 22/04/2019

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Methodology

3. Results

4. Conclusions

Acknowledgements

Bibliographic references

1. Introduction

Healthy nutrition discourse is the cornerstone of studying the quality of labor resources. A substantial contribution to this topic has been made by WHO (the World Health Organization) experts and researchers in medical education and public health, international nutrition and clinical care, as well as in cultural anthropology and sociology of nutrition. In turn, social sciences study problems emerging at the intersection of economic, social and demographic processes – the way in which the capitalist production and social reproduction systems are synchronized and what cultural forms and social practices this synchronization acquires when it comes to nutrition.

1.1. Literature review

Today, key research insights in family nutrition are published by a wide range of specialized scientific journals, such as Appetite, Food Quality and Preference, Food Science and Human Wellness, International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science, Eating Behaviors, Food Research, International Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Maternal and Child Nutrition; Infant, Child, and Adolescent Nutrition (ICAN); Journal of Pediatrics and Child Nutrition; Child: Care, Health and Development; International Journal of Child Health and Nutrition, etc. Interdisciplinary journals in sociology, cultural studies, and psychology mainly deal with the topics of home nutrition, socializing nutrition agents, formation of eating habits, eating as a family ritual, and others. Thus, K. Chapman-Novakofski (2018) studied the role of mothers in home nutrition organization; M. Contrera et al. (2015) analyzed the problems of home-based nutrition quality and safety, mother’s education and her adherence to the WHO healthy diet recommendations. The study of J.H. Kim et al. (2017) addresses the issue of breastfeeding as a natural practice of feeding children rather than a cultural norm. In turn, Ch. Karmacharya et al. (2017) address a positive role of grandmothers in transfer of knowledge and experience of infant feeding practices to young mothers (including the first breastfeeding (colostrum), breast cancer, and introduction of complementary feeding). T. Agrawal et al. (2018) study daily feeding strategies of employed mothers and their consequences for 3–4 years old child nutrition. Not only their routine practices and nutrition organization strategies (advance planning, delegation of authority, search for compromises, and coordination) were explored, but also irregular ones – overtime work or later awakening, which fail to comply with the usual daily routine and require modification of strategies. A number of studies concentrate on the role of fathers in child eating habit formation – thus, K.M. Mallan et al. (2014) study fathers’ responsibility for the weight of young children aged 2–5, and N. Khandpur (2014) looks into the obesity problem at a later age. R.E Boles and T. Gunnarsdottir (2015) explore a positive role of children taking part in a family meal to reduce the risk of obesity in the future.

S. Carnell et al. (2014) study parenting styles in families (authoritarian and authoritative) and their influence on forms of restricting and fostering consumption, as well as methods of child feeding in families – emotional (using food between meals to control the child’s emotions) and instrumental (using food in as a reward or withholding food as a punishment. L.G.M. Raaijmakers et al. (2014) also explore the relationship between the emotional and instrumental methods of child feeding and the tendencies to obesity, alcoholism, unbalanced nutrition and various kinds of diets at a mature age as a result of distortion of hunger as a physiological need. The authors note that in the context of emotional and instrumental nutrition, unhealthy foods such as candy, cookies, chocolate, and ice cream are often consumed, whereas bread, fruit, and vegetables are rarely consumed. Feeding methods are contingent on mother’s age, her social and economic status and educational background, as well as the child’s age and gender. Yet, the body mass index of mother or child has not shown a statistical dependence. A.D. Tate et al. (2016) proved the influence of child’s temperament on the risk of child overweight as a result of the parents’ feeding pattern and the child’s eating behavior. R.L. Vollmer (2017) studied a relationship between healthy eating habits in the family and children’s healthy eating habits. J.L. Kaar et al. (2016) addressed the problem of fear of new food (neophobia) and the parents’ feeding practices.

M. Weinstein (2005) and J. Scheel (2011) explored the process of forming social relations in the family through sharing meals together. A.Y. Grabowski (2017) developed a family therapy system aimed at coping with problems caused by nutritional disorders. The main theme of recipe books (Zahler and Tolman, 2013; Robins, 2016; Hoag, 2017; Portell, 2018; Dudash, 2019) deals with various family healthy diets (vegan diets, clean eating, slow cooker, a combination of meat and vegetarian diets in the family). А.M. Reeve (2017), K. Bernardo (2018), T. King (2018) propose to use such universal household appliances as a slow cooker to shorten the time for cooking for the whole family. Finally, P. Monsivais et al. (2014) study a relationship between time spent on cooking and eating, and healthy food practices, while A.W. Watts et al. (2017) focus on the influence of parents’ nutrition practices in the family on the diet of adolescents, in particular, consumption of dishes composed of fruit and vegetables, which require long processing. At the same time, these studies do not take into account the type of capitalist production of food and the respective time dimension, within which a new food culture is formed in families in the perspective of their social status.

Thus, the type of capitalist production has been changing over the past 150 years. French economic sociologists L. Boltanski and E. Chiapello (1999) argue that there was a transition from the domestic type of capitalism in the 19th century to the industrial type in the 20th century and to the project type in the 21st century. Project capitalism is characterized by network-based industrial engineering, a short-term nature of production activity and a focus on financial performance, as well as the absence (or leveling out) of spatial barriers, inclusion in “new” communities, and adaptability to environmental changes (social, cultural, technological, etc.).

Projectivity becomes the key attribute of economic activity and determines the lifestyle of modern society, including in terms of nutrition. Interestingly, following the evolution of capitalist job and production engineering, the nutrition organization has been evolving as well, a traditional sphere of domestic production and consumption, since latter is a reflection of the socioeconomic processes of global development of industrial capitalism. Timing budgets acquire special value in the world of projects. The ability to manage them to meet one’s needs forms the mainstay of social differentiation.

Traditionally, time is a historical category of analysis. Thus, F. Braudel (1984) distinguishes three temporal rhythm speeds – short duration of events, average time cycles of social and economic processes, and long duration of sociocultural structures – the existence of civilizations. According to H. Jordheim (2014), historical time is devoid of unity, uniformity, and homogeneity of Newtonian or Hegelian time, it is asynchronous, socially and historically determined, and common to all cultures and civilizations. According to G. Gurvitch (1964), social time is multiple and heterogeneous; he adduces an eight-way classification of time: slow time for the human race reproduction, unstable time for occasional events and unforeseen circumstances, cyclical time for tradition and all sorts of repetitions, etc. Synchronicity of social time is a result of unification and adaptation of a complex set of technological practices and different social processes in various cultures at the universal time of progress.

Predominant features of progress in the early 21st century are its compression and speed. By the close of the 20th century, industrial capitalism began to accelerate rapidly, largely due to information technology, and caused changes in other social processes. Fast capitalism as a way of compressing time corresponds to a dominant economic imperative and serves as an instrument of social control depriving the working class of personal time and space and subjecting them to the logic of process. Rapid capitalism generates fast body technologies – fast food, fast nutrition practices, fast diets, and fast workout programs to lose weight. B. Agger (2016) points out that there is definitely a connection between work and nutrition. A fast person spends 40 hours per week at work, eats quickly and poorly (usually fast food and ready-made industrially processed foods), avoids aerobic activity, does not sleep enough, feels lonesome and experiences severe stress; is probably inclined to using alcohol and other substances to quickly relieve the stress, to resorting to quick entertainment, which results in high exposure to such diseases as high blood pressure, stroke, and heart attack. Children raised in families inherit adult nutrition practices, their lifestyles, and health problems associated therewith. Only those people who have a flexible job and time can afford to be healthy and to have a healthy family (Agger, 2016). The slow lifestyle and its practices are criticized and considered a carryover of agricultural economy and domestic capitalism. In the era of project capitalism of the 21st century, the set of traditional housekeeping and family organization practices is being reconfigured. J. Gershuny and T.A. Harms (2016) analyzed the time budget structure of women workers’ households in the United States for the period of 1920-2000s and identified the following historical trends. Thus, while in the 1920s most of the household time was spent on cooking, cleaning, washing, sewing, and maintaining the utilities, in the 2000s an increase in time allocated for childcare, shopping and family management was recorded. An important role in this process has been played by time and labor-intensive housekeeping technologies: household appliances, central heating and water supply, consumer services, online stores, and delivery services. Today, the major task of women in families is parenthood, which refers to children’s primary socialization and management of their education and leisure. Investing in the human capital of children contributes to their chances of competing for higher social positions and income levels.

Regarding gender balance differences, boys receive a larger share of family investment in comparison with girls, which determines boys’ stronger chances to hold well-paid positions before the age of 40 and low social risks (including on international labor markets subject to neoliberal economy principles). The same trend applies to child nutrition in the family. Despite identical physiological nutritional needs of children aged under 14, boys receive better nutrition than girls. It refers to the nutrition in the natural infanthood – in the cultures of rich countries with developed economies, where breastfeeding is highly valued, boys are breast-fed for a longer time than girls, whereas in the cultures of poor countries with developing economies, where artificial feeding with baby formulas rich in nutrients is highly valued, this is what boys receive (Liamputtong, 2011). As juveniles aged 14 and more, boys receive more food rich in animal protein (beef, lamb, etc.), while girls are supposed to consume more vegetable food and fish and are expected to abide by food restrictions in the form of different diets during their teen years. It is likely that the physiological nutritional needs of young men aged 15 to 40 years old are higher (the period of high fertility, economic activity, and fitness for military service); however, this trend is observed throughout life, often causing men health problems in late adulthood and old age. In other words, food in the family (and society as a whole) is divided unevenly between children of different genders. At the same time, the real needs of an individual in different periods of their life – childhood, maturity, and old age – are not taken into account.

Child nutrition can be seen as an important component of parents’ strategy to invest in the child’s human capital because a healthy child is a teachable and able-bodied person who can quickly climb the social ladder in the future. Each social class has its own culture of “proper” child nutrition, whereby the health potential is not evenly distributed among future labor resources; it is lower for the middle class and higher for the lower and upper classes.

As previously noted, time is inhomogeneous and asynchronous. Various economic, social and demographic processes in society proceed at a different pace. Different social strata also live at a different pace. The middle class lives in the age of industrial capitalism with its fast and short linear time cycle, the lower class lives in the age of domestic capitalism with its slow and short time cycle, the upper and upper-middle classes – in the project era that retains the best practices of domestic and industrial capitalism and uses a flexible time frame of slow and long cycles.

The empirical base of the study was a research of social nutrition practices of St. Petersburg residents through a telephone survey using CATI technology, conducted by the Center for Sociological and Online Research at St. Petersburg State University. The sample size was 1054 people aged 18 years and older. The in-depth interview data (N = 55) and statistical data on diets of the population of St. Petersburg were used.

Cooking and eating time is an unspoken criterion of social inequality in society. Different social groups spend different time on nutrition during the day and week. The analysis of housekeeping time budget in families with different social status shows that the amount of employment of the person engaged in preparing meals for children is important. Thus, in middle class families (with income from 30 to 60 thousand rubles per family member every month, or 440-880 dollars) where the income earners (usually both parents) are engaged in professional activities for most of the day, the practice of fast cooking during the day is common. Food is usually cooked over the weekend for several workdays in advance so that this process takes no more than 30 minutes per day. Approximately the same time is allocated for its consumption – 30-40 minutes (2-3 meals and/or 1-2 snack breaks).

Their daily ration is composed of fast food products: baby canned food, ready-made instant cereals, various meat, fish, and vegetable semi-finished single-packed products (steaks, fillets, washed vegetables and herbs for salad, etc.), ready-to-eat snack foods and industrial drinks (for example, formula milk, milkshakes, fruit and vegetable smoothies, fermented milk products – yoghurt drinks, cottage cheese desserts), etc. – everything that saves cooking time. In addition, this stratum is characterized by “conscious nutrition”, which stands for weekly shopping planning and following the WHO adapted nutrition regulations in terms of salt and fat intake, as well as fresh vegetables and fruit. Women and, consequently, their children are especially susceptible to the “healthy diet” trend. They actively consume and buy for their families dietary bio-based products with reduced fat and high protein content (for example, bio-yoghurt with grains and flax seeds, Icelandic skyr, and even bio-trout), functional food for hearty and healthy quick meals – snacks and superfoods: quinoa and spirulina chips, gluten-free biscuits with pieces of Southeast Asian fruit, vegetarian sugar-free chocolate, organic lemonade and herbal teas, etc.

Middle-aged women tend to work over the standard eight-hour workday five days a week and spend the income they earn in excess of the standard consumption rate to imitate social nutrition practices of the upper class who, in turn, do not only have time to earn money but also to spend it in a particular way. However, it is the middle class that form the bulk of effective demand in economy and encourage the industry to be in progress by constantly expanding its range of innovative flavors (for example, industrially created condensed milk, creme brulee, mocha, truffle, caramel, tiramisu, strawberry, and vanilla flavors used in the candy manufacture and dairy production). Artificial and identical flavors have a bold taste and help to quickly relieve stress after a working day; they promote a feeling of joy and of the so-called “savor in life”. The middle and upper middle classes extensively use modern household appliances, including those remotely controlled, to imitate a long-term way of cooking – slow cookers and multibakers, breadbakers and yogurt makers, blenders and juice squeezers, etc. They significantly speed up the cooking process and make it possible to prepare sophisticated dishes typical of haute cuisine. They also help organize learning games in the kitchen. For example, Redmond offers a multibaker with letter- and numeral-shaped panels, which allows one to make a variety of puzzles out of fancy cookies and teach a child to read and count, as well as to play arithmetic logical games and metagrams.

With regard to food shopping, the middle class shop in hypermarkets and chain stores. These are goods for the mass consumer – industrial dairy, meat and fish products that have passed a long chain of transportation, storage in distribution and resale centers, which is determined by the economic benefits of key players in the food market rather than its real consumer value.

Upper middle social groups (with incomes above 60 thousand rubles per person in a family, or 880 dollars) and the upper class spend more than 2.5 hours a day of their personal time or hired time on cooking food, wherefore they invite domestic assistants and personal chefs or eat out (for example, in restaurants). On average, food consumption takes 1.5 hours (three main meals and three snack breaks). Their staple is freshly cooked food of all product groups, depending on individual preferences. Normally, it is choice food to order (including cultivation, milking, catching, and slaughtering) and its long-term treatment (which the middle class imitate in their social nutrition practices). The middle and upper middle strata shop for food in upscale (wholesale and small-scale wholesale) malls, grocery boutiques, online stores (for example, eco-food stores or specialized fish and meat stores) or directly from an agricultural producer to order. They also tend to buy specialized baby food – industrial baby food of both democratic and premium makes. This is especially relevant to cereals and meat mash for children aged under 12-18 months due to a “high quality control” of finished products guaranteed by multinational companies. The issues of organically grown raw materials, the absence of harmful additives in finished food products (artificial flavors and natural identical flavors, coloring agents and preservatives), GMOs, and rapeseed and palm oil are of particular importance for them. Bacterial starter cultures used for making fermented milk products (yoghurt, kefir, ryazhenka [baked yoghurt], sour cream, and cottage cheese) are popular with those women who do not trust the quality of innovative technology-based industrial fermented milk products. The reason for this is the presence of powdered milk, palm oil and other ingredients in the source raw material, which increases the finished product volume to the detriment of the product quality. Moreover, these starter cultures make it possible to make vegan homemade fermented products from soy, almond, and coconut milk, as well as from alternative types of milk – goat, sheep, and mare milk. Such starters are quite expensive; however, there are cheaper starters for the mass consumer, which are sold through pharmacy chains, since this problem concerns every segments of population. The issue of food manufacturer’s country of origin is also relevant, both in terms of producer reputation as the best in its industry and friendly/unfriendly country. For example, buying fruit and vegetables from Turkey or China is considered wrong, while buying those from Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan (even Chinese-made) is right. Food products made in Russia, Israel, Latin America, and North Africa are considered to be the best.

For the upper class, it is typical to pay attention to the symbolic component of nutrition. It does not only refer to select food and drinks that are a status marker but also to such social practices as, for example, culinary journey and culinary experiments (individual or as part of elite communities); it is these practices that take on particular significance in affluent society with their 3D food printers and food simulacra because “taste cannot be digitized”. They convey this kind of vision of food to their children, thereby laying the groundwork for their cultural capital from an early age. Culinary games are becoming part of children’s socialization in elite nursery schools, child leisure centers and even child play space in restaurants. There are also specialized schools – for example, cooking schools that offer workshops for children in cooking and tasting dishes from various national cuisines. The most popular ones are Russian, Mediterranean, French, Italian, Armenian and Georgian, Japanese, Scandinavian, Thai, Mexican, Greek, Spanish, Cuban, Oriental and dietary cuisines (gluten, lactose and sugar free). Unlike cooking television shows that are aimed at children as general public and are entertaining (with elements of healthy diet promotion) or advertising in nature, such schools allow the child to form habitus and create social capital from an early age.

Like the upper and upper middle classes, the lower social groups spend more than 2.5 hours a day on food, provided that at least one member of the household, usually a woman, does not work full time and/or manages the household. The time allotted for a meal is 30 minutes (one full meal and 2-3 snack breaks during the day). Precooked foods prove to be too expensive for them, which causes them to resort to the use of domestic manual labor in cooking. As well as for the upper middle class, the following long-term cooking methods are available to them: fermentation (including fermented milk products), stewing, pickling, sousing, home baking and home canning (Smelova, 2018).

Interestingly, there are also differences in terms of breastfeeding in the social groups. Despite the fact that international and national health organizations declare a high social value of natural breastfeeding, it rather becomes an alternative social practice for feeding infants, inaccessible to the working (middle) class because of the socioeconomic environment. It becomes a prerogative of the lower and upper social strata due to the time capital required to feed an infant up to the age of 24 months or longer, according to the WHO recommendations. Although unemployed mothers from the lower social strata do not have sufficient means to ensure quality nutrition during lactation, they may sell their breast milk or become a foster nurse as a primary or additional source of income to receive additional funds from their clients for food to improve the composition of milk. Mothers from the upper social strata, if they have the desire and are healthy enough, have everything required for successful breastfeeding. Even if they lead an active work or social life, they have the opportunity to be flexible in managing their time and organizing the workplace. According to N. Guttman and D.R. Zimmerman (2000), breastfeeding is viewed by the working class women as unaffordable luxury and inconvenience. In turn, M.H. Nadesan and P. Sotirin (1998) argue that the nutrition type of infants and young children is an expression of material and social differences in patriarchal capitalist society.

Labor legislation in Russia undoubtedly confers working mothers the right to nurse a child up to the age of 1.5, resuming their work activity or going on maternity leave. However, no provision exists to impose responsibility on the employer to arrange for breastfeeding at the workplace. However, as a matter of practice, the duration of breastfeeding for mothers who wish to do so is within 11 months. Today, a baby care room in offices is rather an exception than a common social practice. In 2017, Rospotrebnadzor made a draft of sanitation and hygiene regulations named “Sanitary-Epidemiological Requirements for Women’s Labor Conditions”, whereby the employer would be obliged to provide a mother with a child under 1.5 with an equipped room for nursing. However, it does not stipulate where and with whom the infant would spend the rest of the working time. As a result, a young child is likely to switch to artificial or donor feeding. It is important to note that a high percentage of women are usually employed in the service sector, which implies a large number of social contacts and, as a result, a high exposure to infectious diseases. Together with a reduced immunity during lactation, this may lead to an increased incidence rate of acute respiratory and other diseases, both in mothers themselves and their children, which may result in work interruptions by reason of illness (and in a threat of imminent dismissal), as well as in taking medications that are not compatible with breastfeeding. Subsequently, this determines a high demand for artificial milk formulas and donor breast milk. As of 2018 in St. Petersburg, the average market price for 100 ml of breast milk on Russian “white market” ranges from 150 to 500 rubles for fresh milk and from 100 rubles for frozen milk. On average, the daily supply of breast milk is 500 ml, whereas the infant’s need for it is 1000 ml a day (for reference, 100 ml of milk formula based on cow milk costs 9-17 rubles provided that free water is used; the price range is given for economy to premium class brands, while the price of 100 ml of cow milk with fat content 3.5 % varies from 6 to 22.5 rubles, and 100 ml of infant cow milk with fat content 3.2% costs 9-9.5 rubles). In general, working mother of the lower and middle strata normally have to resume work soon and switch children to artificial feeding at the age of 2-6 months.

However, natural breastfeeding is also not a universally accepted social practice due to cultural conditions, unlike artificial or donor breastfeeding. It does not award a woman a legitimate social status. In fact, the evolving international system of milk capitalism (both artificial baby formula and donor milk) defines social practices of nutrition for infants. A culture of bottle feeding develops around the problem of breastfeeding: it is referred to infant feeding with a bottle, either with the mother’s (gone to work) or a donor’s breast milk or an infant formula based on animal milk or vegetable milk (milk-free infant formula stands for soy formula for milk and lactose intolerance). There is a transition to technological feeding and a growing demand for a sacred bioresource – human milk as an important biological and social resource (Smelova, 2018). Different social classes solve this problem in different ways, whereby some have higher chances to survive without artificial medical intervention, while the others do not.

In general, the pattern of daily food consumption in families of all social strata in St. Petersburg is as follows: 95% consume bread, 80.5% meat, 78% cereals, etc., 71.3% dairy and fermented milk products. Almost half of the families (48.7%) buy semi-finished meat products on a regular basis. At the same time, the diet of men typically consists of industrially manufactured and processed meat and flour-based food, whereas women’s diet predominantly consists of fish products and poultry meat, and dairy products, fruit and fresh vegetables are more extensively consumed by women and children – almost twice more often as by men. It is noteworthy that there are no men who would not eat any meat at all, while more than 30% of women abandon meat in favor of fish and vegetable food. Almost 90% of families tend to adhere to one or more WHO rules of healthy nutrition. Thus, half of the families comply with the rules for limiting salt intake, while about a quarter of them do not add salt to food at all. 22% of families strictly cut consumption of sugar. About 30% consume low fat dietetic food (poultry and fish). However, less than a quarter of St. Petersburg residents keep to a special family diet. As a general rule, 28% of women and 24% of children follow a meal plan, which is rather connected with a specific diagnosis and medical advice. Compared with other cities of Russia, St. Petersburg is number one in terms of food allergies (2.5 times). As for public eating places, 41% of families regularly go out to eat in a cafe, 60.5% opt for restaurants as a family pastime (with expensive Russian/Soviet cuisine or more affordable Caucasian and al Asian cuisine), and 77% account for fast food restaurants (MacDonalds, KFC, and Subway). A declining trend in food availability for children is observed in families with three or more children, as compared to those with one or two children. The annual increase in the share of low-income families in St. Petersburg is 1.1%.

3.1. Discussion

Today, the range of research problems in terms of nutrition in families covers the influence of healthy and unhealthy diet (Vollmer, 2017; Chapman-Novakofski, 2018; Contrera et al., 2015), child feeding patterns (Carnell et al., 2014; Raaijmakers et al., 2014; Tate et al., 2016; Kaar et al., 2016), the lifestyle and employment of parents (Agrawal et al., 2018) and other agents of socialization (Karmacharya et al., 2017; Mallan et al., 2014; Khandpur et al., 2014) on formation of a nutrition culture in children and construction of modern institution of the family through shared meals (Weinstein, 2005; Scheel, 2011; Grabowski, 2017). Finally, researchers refer to the category of time allotted for food consumption and the problem of its synchronization for all the family members (Monsivais et al., 2014; Watts et al., 2017). However, it is crucial to remember that feeding practices are a social process that involves several dimensions: it is a type of food recognized as safe for consumption, a dietary pattern, a form of having a meal, a type of food production (domestic or industrial), social distribution of food among the family members in accordance with the dominant culture, and control over the quantity and quality of the food eaten.

There is an apparent connection between capitalist production of food and social nutrition practices in families. The transition from the industrial to project type of capitalist production in the 20th – early 21st centuries was marked by social criticism of older production technologies and methods of nutrition. There was also a transition in time from a highly regulated dietary regimen by the hour, typical for industrial production, to a free dietary pattern of flexible project manufacturing. Leaders of the old era of industrial capitalism –transnational food corporations – still firmly hold their positions, adapting their standards to the new requirements of international and national nutrition and health institutions, promoting their products as a safe nutrition standard. They are active in a social process initiated by the WHO, whereby nutrition is seen as an instrument to solve health problems and safeguard peace in the world. Thus, TNCs, together with other participants in the process, seek to achieve the following health targets as part of a public discourse: high life expectancy (survival rate up to 10, 30, and 50 years), low incidence of non-communicable diseases (cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes, obesity, malignant tumors, etc.), high physical activity, etc. As the decades go by, mechanisms for solving social problems are changing. For example, while the infant survival rate was previously ensured by a switch to artificial feeding and a large positive role therein was played by evaporated milk formulas, now a harm of this industrial product is discussed: an active campaign is being conducted against artificial feeding for infants under 6 months, the breastfeeding practice is supported, and social banks of donor milk are created. The WHO is also campaigning to limit children’s consumption of saturated fat, trans-fatty acids, salt, and free sugars that are found in industrial sweets, fatty foods (especially fast food), and carbonated drinks.

Along with the above mentioned problems, there are some problems in family nutrition organization, which cannot be solved under industrial or project capitalism. The latter, in turn, has simplified the cooking process and solved the problem of food availability but failed to create effective social practices for food consumption. They did not take into account the problem of full-time employment of working mothers and their inability to take care of nutrition of their children, husbands, and relatives in need of care throughout the day. Preschool and school organizations, on-the-job and public canteens, etc. have also been unable to solve this problem. The industrial type of capitalism has created a culture of “semi-finished products” as a way to produce food and a culture of “snacking” as a form of its consumption. However, such nutrition not only fails to supply the body of an individual with essential nutrients but also causes a number of “new” diseases (gastrological and metabolic diseases, allergies, etc.). What is produced is not what is useful, according to the WHO nutrition recommendations, but what is cheap in terms of the production cycle and return on investment in agriculture (for example, “lean” white meat rather than “unhealthy” red meat; adapted milk formulas with pre- and probiotics or albuminolysis-based formulas rather than cow, goat or sheep milk; gluten-free cereals (corn and rice) rather than gluten cereals (wheat and rye). On the contrary, the social nutrition practices of domestic capitalism implied a greater inclusion of women (of 1-2-3 generations) in the organization of family nutrition and demonstrated its effectiveness due to the time budget distributed within the family. The analysis of social feeding practices in families of different social strata shows that the lower and middle classes tend to the culture of food production and consumption of the domestic and industrial types of capitalism with its slow and short cyclical or linear time, while the upper middle and upper classes – to the project type with the best practices of domestic and industrial production with its slow and long circular time. Lifetime is multiple, not uniform and linear as in Boltanski and Chiapello – the same physical time flows in diverse ways for different social groups: the lower class live in the domestic world, the middle class live in the industrial world, and the upper middle and upper class live in the project world, the time of progress that exists for the professional and social elite.

Thus, it is not only taste (Bourdieu, 1984; Fielding-Singh, 2017), but also time that determines a lifestyle and classifies people into different social groups, leaving open the opportunity to accumulate biological, social, and cultural capital for some of them and not for some others. This is what ultimately determines their human capital and the chances of success in society. It takes the lower social strata most of their lifetime to work (as an earner) or to do the housekeeping to ensure physical reproduction. The middle strata have a job (and a career), work beyond their necessary labor time and use their earned income to pay the services of various household staff. For the upper middle and upper classes, time is an asset, an accumulated and freely convertible resource. It is in the era of project capitalism when time acquires special value, acting as a criterion of social inequality. However, while the previous eras of domestic and industrial capitalism did not consider it as an asset, it also served as a tool of social differentiation. For example, T. Veblen (2016) in The Theory of the Leisure Class contrasts the ostentation of unproductive time consumption of the upper middle and upper classes with rationality and practicality of the lower class. Therefore, it is the time spent on food production and consumption that determines the type of social feeding practices in families of different social strata and further defines their social potential.

According to the theory of conventions, over the 19th–21st centuries there has been a transition from domestic type of capitalism with its culture of domestic production and consumption to industrial and subsequently to project type that determines social nutrition practices. However, the concept of multiplicity of time allows one to notice asynchrony of economic, social and demographic processes, as well as distribution of food by social status in capitalist society. Thus, it has been revealed that the time spent for preparation and consumption of food is an unspoken criterion of social inequality in society.

Analysis of the time budget for housekeeping in families with different social status shows that the lower class tend towards food production and consumption of the domestic type with its slow and short timing cycle, the middle class – towards the industrial type with its fast linear time, while the upper middle and upper class – towards the project type that preserves the best practices of household and industrial production and uses a flexible time frame of slow and long cycles. Nutrition type is connected to health potential and, in the long term, to the capability of an individual to accumulate human capital, which subsequently determines their chances of success in society. It has been concluded that each social stratum has its own culture of “proper” nutrition in the family, therefore, the health potential is not uniformly distributed among the workforce: it is lower for the middle class and higher for the lower and upper classes

Acknowledgements

The study was sponsored by the RFBR grant 17-03-00631-OGN “Daily nutrition practices and public health (case studies of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region)”.

Agger, B. (2016). Speeding Up Fast Capitalism: Cultures, Jobs, Families, Schools, Bodies. Abingdon: Routledge.

Agrawal, T. Farrell, T.J. Wethington, E., Devine, C.M. (2018). Doing our best to keep a routine: How low-income mothers manage child feeding with unpredictable work and family schedules. Appetite, 120, 57-66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2017.08.010

Bernardo, K. (2018). Weeknight Cooking with Your Instant Pot: Simple Family-Friendly Meals Made Better in Half the Time, Page Street Publishing.

Boles, R.E. and Gunnarsdottir, T. (2015). Family Meals Protect against Obesity: Exploring the Mechanisms. The Journal of Pediatrics, 166(2), 220-221.

Boltanski, and L. Chiapello, E. (2018). The New Spirit of Capitalism, Verso, Reprint edition.

Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Harvard University Press.

Braudel, F. (1984). Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century (3 Volume Set), Harper & Row Publishers.

Carnell, S. Benson, L. Driggin, E., Kolbe, L. (2014). Parent feeding behavior and child appetite: Associations depend on feeding style. International Journal of Eating Disorders. Special Issue: Developmental Risk for Eating Disorders across the Lifespan, 47(7), 705-709.

Chapman-Novakofski, K. (2018). Mothers, Children, and Eating: Past, Present, and Future, Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 50(4), 30–331.

Contrera, M. Blandón, E.Z., Persson L.-A., Hjern, A., Ekström, E.-Ch. (2015). Socio-economic resources, young child feeding practices, consumption of highly processed snacks and sugar-sweetened beverages: a population-based survey in rural northwestern Nicaragua. BMC Public Health, 15, 25-38. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-1374-5.

Dudash, M. (2019). Clean Eating for Busy Families, revised and expanded: Simple and Satisfying Real-Food Recipes You and Your Kids Will Love. Fair Winds Press.

Fielding-Singh, Pr. (2017). A Taste of Inequality: Food’s Symbolic Value across the Socioeconomic Spectrum. Sociological Science, 4, 424-448.

Gershuny, J. and Harms, T.A. (2016). Housework Now Takes Much Less Time 85 Years of us Rural Women’s Time Use. Social Forces, 95(2), 503–524. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sow073

Grabowski, A.Y. (2017). An Internal Family Systems Guide to Recovery from Eating Disorders. Routledge.

Gurvitch, G. (1964). The spectrum of social time (Synthese library). D. Reidel Pub. Co; First Edition.

Guttman, N. and Zimmerman, D.R. (2000). Low-income mothers’ views on breastfeeding. Social Science & Medicine, 50, 1457–1473.

Hoag, J. (2017). One Dish Two Diets: Recipes for the Hybrid Vegetarian and Meat-Eating Family. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Jordheim, H. (2014). Multiple Times and the Work of Synchronization. History and Theory, 53, 498-518.

Kaar, J.L., Shapiro, A.L.B., Fell, S.L., Johnson, D.M. (2016). Parental feeding practices, food neophobia, and child food preferences: What combination of factors results in children eating a variety of foods? Food Quality and Preference, 50, 57-64.

Karmacharya, Ch., Cunningham, K., Choufani, J., Kadiyala, S. (2017). Grandmothers’ knowledge positively influences maternal knowledge and infant and young child feeding practices. Public Health Nutrition, 20(12), 2114-2123.

Khandpur, N., Blaine, R.E., Fisher, J.O., Davison, K.K. (2014). Fathers’ child feeding practices: A review of the evidence. Appetite, 78, 110-121.

Kim, J.H., Fiese, B.H., Donovan, S.M. (2017). Breastfeeding is Natural but Not the Cultural Norm: A Mixed-Methods Study of First-Time Breastfeeding, African American Mothers Participating in WIC”, Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 49(7), 151-S161.e1.

King, T. (2018). Eat at Home Tonight: 101 Simple Busy-Family Recipes for Your Slow Cooker, Sheet Pan, Instant Pot®, and More. WaterBrook.

Liamputtong, P. (2011). Infant Feeding Practices: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Springer.

Mallan, K.M., Nothard, M. Thorpe, K., Nicholson, J.M., Wilson, A., Scuffham, P.A., Daniels, L.A. (2014). The role of fathers in child feeding: Perceived responsibility and predictors of participation. Child: Care, Health and Development, 40, 715-722.

Monsivais, P. Aggarwal, A. Drewnowski, A. (2014). Time Spent on Home Food Preparation and Indicators of Healthy Eating. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 47(6), 769-802.

Nadesan, M.H. and Sotirin, P. (1998). The romance and science of ‘breast is best’: Discursive contradictions and contexts of breast-feeding choices”, Text and Performance Quarterly, 18, 217–232.

Portell, D. (2018). Fuel your family: A Clean Eating Family Cookbook. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Raaijmakers, L.G.M. Gevers, D.W.M., Teuscher, D., Kremers, S.P.J., van Assema, P. (2014). Emotional and instrumental feeding practices of Dutch mothers regarding foods eaten between main meals. BMC Public Health, 14, 171.

Reeve, M. (2017). 500 Instant Pot Recipes: Easy and Delicious Recipes For Your Whole Family (Electric Pressure Cooker Cookbook) (Instant Pot Cookbook). CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Robins, J. (2016). The Paleo Kids Cookbook: Transition Your Family to Delicious Grain- and Gluten-free Food for a Lifetime of Healthy Eating. Page Street Publishing.

Scheel, J. (2011). When Food Is Family: A Loving Approach to Heal Eating Disorders. Washington: Idyll Arbor.

Smelova, A.A. (2018). Social practices of feeding children in the project capitalism era”, Society: Sociology, Psychology, and Pedagogy, 10, 2-62.

Smelova, A.A. (2018). Social practices of feeding children: breast-feeding as a social and economic problem”, Theory and practice of social development, 10, 32-39.

Tate, A.D., Trofholz, A., Rudasill, K.M., Neumark-Sztainer, D., Berge, J.M. (2016). Does child temperament modify the overweight risk associated with parent feeding behaviors and child eating behaviors? An exploratory study. Appetite, 101, 178-183.

Veblen, T. (2016). The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Vollmer, R.L. (2017). Do Feeding Styles Moderate the Relationship Between Food Parenting Practices and Preschool Age Children's Food Preferences?, Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 49(7), S2–S3.

Watts, A.W. Loth, K. Berge, M. Larson, N. Neumark-Sztainer, D. (2017). No Time for Family Meals? Parenting Practices Associated with Adolescent Fruit and Vegetable Intake When Family Meals Are Not an Option. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 117(5), 707-714.

Webster, F. (2014). Theories of the Information Society (International Library of Sociology). Routledge.

Weinstein, M. (2005). The Surprising Power of Family Meals: How Eating Together Makes Us Smarter, Stronger, Healthier, and Happier. Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press.

Zahler, E. Tolman, C. (2013). Healthy Cookbooks for Families: Clean Eating and Slow Cooker Recipes. WebNetworks

1. Candidate of Sciences (Sociology), Associate Professor, Department of Economic Sociology, Saint-Petersburg State University, Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation. Contact e-mail: alena.smelova2018@yandex.ru