From American individualism to French commensalism:
Varying views of food, body and health across contemporary western societies (and their
possible relevance to obesity and current health issues)
Claude Fischler
Heidelberg, Nov 6-7, 2014
In the last decades, nutritionists have put forward and used the term “Western diet” widely (and
rather indiscriminately) to describe changing food consumption and its consequences – mostly
negative in their view. But the vision acquired through large aggregates changes when
populations or nations are considered at closer range.
In the last 10-15 years, we have accumulated data from comparative, qualitative and quantitative
surveys on attitudes, beliefs and perceptions about food, health and the body. Between
countries featuring similar standards of living and geographical proximity, there exist striking
differences in food cultures, not just in what is eaten but also in how, when, why it is eaten, and
the meanings people attribute to foods and rules – often implicit – governing their consumption.
Evidence is that, even between certain countries featuring similar standards of living and
geographical proximity, there may exist striking differences in terms of attitudes towards food in
relation to health and pleasure. Why is the prevalence of obesity in France lower than in any
other “Western”, European country? Why is it so substantially lower, for instance, than just
across the Channel in the UK or on the other side of the Rhine river, in Germany?
In our samples, Americans tend to consider food and eating as an individual, private issue –
rather than a collective, social one – and seem to equate food exclusively with nutrition and
health. In stark contrast, Italian interviewees consider freshness and quality of foodstuff essential,
and French respondents, while sharing the concern about quality and taste, emphasize what
they call « conviviality », i.e.the social aspects involved in, and structuring, the experience of
eating. In our view, the data are compatible with the hypothesis that cultures with a highly
individualized, as it were de-socialized, relationship to food, may be more susceptible to obesity
than other cultures with a strong emphasis on sociability and shared enjoyment. Such seems to
be the case of the United States in contrast, in particular, to southern European cultures.
Public health policies have long been aimed at individuals, inciting them to change their behavior
for "rational, healthy choices". Medicalization and individualization of food and eating by both the
industry (health and nutrition claims) and public health (guidelines for "the people" aimed at
individual behavior, etc), both echoed and amplified by the media, lead to a "nutritional
cacophony" and various degrees of anxiety, while there may be long unsuspected benefits to
commensalism.