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Book part
Publication date: 22 August 2016

Denise A. Copelton

Celiac disease is an auto-immune disorder that requires strict lifelong adherence to a gluten-free diet. I explore how a celiac diagnosis affects gendered feeding work within…

Abstract

Purpose

Celiac disease is an auto-immune disorder that requires strict lifelong adherence to a gluten-free diet. I explore how a celiac diagnosis affects gendered feeding work within families.

Methodology/approach

This chapter is based on a grounded theory analysis of field research with five celiac support groups and 80 in-depth interviews. I interviewed 15 adult men and 56 adult women with celiac, plus nine additional family members.

Findings

Gendered care work norms place the onus of responsibility for gluten-free feeding work on women, multiplying time spent planning, shopping, and preparing meals. Women employ distinct gendered strategies to accommodate the gluten-free diet. Following a strategy of integration, women tailor family meals to meet other diagnosed family members’ dietary needs and the entire family’s taste preferences. However, when women themselves have celiac, they follow a pattern of deferential subordination, not allowing their own dietary needs to alter family meals. Thus, women continue to prepare family meals as a form of care for others, even when their medical needs justify putting themselves first.

Originality/value

Social support is a key determinant of compliance with necessary lifestyle and dietary changes in chronic illness. However, little research explores the gendered dynamics within families accounting for the link between social support and dietary compliance. I show how gendered care work norms benefit husbands and children with celiac, while simultaneously disadvantaging women with celiac.

Details

Gender and Food: From Production to Consumption and After
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-054-1

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 22 August 2016

Vasilikie Demos and Marcia Texler Segal

This introduction provides an overview of the themes and chapters of this volume.

Abstract

Purpose/approach

This introduction provides an overview of the themes and chapters of this volume.

Research implications

The chapters present original qualitative and quantitative research illustrating the complex relationship between gender and food. The need to understand the relationship intersectionally and in historical context is apparent and provisioning as caring emerges as a major theme.

Practical and social implications

Food is a human right yet it is not always and everywhere available and when it is not always humanly produced and healthful. The fact that food production and consumption is gendered cannot be ignored in the quest for feeding our planet.

Originality/value

The chapter and the volume are intended to illustrate some of the many ways that food and gender are related and to encourage gender scholars to continue to pay attention to food research.

Details

Gender and Food: From Production to Consumption and After
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-054-1

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 29 June 2017

Jeffery Sobal

Food system channels are proposed to be major components of the larger food system which influence health and illness.

Abstract

Purpose

Food system channels are proposed to be major components of the larger food system which influence health and illness.

Methodology/approach

Food system channels are defined, discussed in relationship to other food system components, considered in terms of historical food system changes, examined in relationship to wellbeing and disease, and proposed to have useful applications.

Findings

Food system channels are broad, organized, and integrated pathways through which foods and nutrients pass. Channels are larger in scale and scope than previously described food system structures like chains, stages, sectors, networks, and others. Four major types of contemporary Western food system channels differ in their underlying values and health impacts. (1) Industrialized food channels are based on profit as an economic value, which contributes to a diversity of inexpensive foods and chronic diseases. (2) Emergency food channels are based on altruism as a moral value, and try to overcome gaps in industrialized channels to prevent diseases of poverty. (3) Alternative food channels are based on justice and environmentalism as ethical values, and seek to promote wellness and sustainability. (4) Subsistence food channels are based on self-sufficiency as a traditional value, and seek self-reliance to avoid hunger and illness. Historical socioeconomic development of agricultural and industrial transitions led to shifts in food system channels that shaped dietary, nutritional, epidemiological, and mortality transitions.

Implications

Food system channels provide varying amounts of calories and types of nutrients that shape wellbeing and diseases. Sociologists and others may benefit from examining food system channels and considering their role in health and illness.

Details

Food Systems and Health
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-092-3

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 16 October 2018

Antonio Francesco Maturo and Veronica Moretti

The biomedical paradigm enjoys growing importance in our society. Biomedicine (e.g., Genetics) seems to occupy the position once held by religion and politics. In this context…

Abstract

The biomedical paradigm enjoys growing importance in our society. Biomedicine (e.g., Genetics) seems to occupy the position once held by religion and politics. In this context, every trivial problem of daily life is thought to require an appropriate remedy, and perfect health becomes a paramount value, especially within the upper class.

Medicalization is not only promoted by doctors. Today, other engines of medicalization are also available. These include pharmaceutical companies through marketing, advertising, and disease mongering; active consumers who seek a pharmacological solution – a magic bullet – to solve non-organic problems; technology, because highly sensitive diagnostic tools can now detect potential abnormalities even in very low quantities; and the culture of risk, which is connected to the evolution of diagnostic tools, because it is now always possible to be at risk of something.

The parts of life today considered pathological or quasi-pathological are ever increasing shyness, sadness, imperfect blood pressure, or glucose levels. Progressing editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) – the text from which diagnoses of mental illnesses are made – reveal a growing number of syndromes. These “diseases” are diagnosed on the grounds of certain symptoms and the number of weeks they last (quantification). Smartphones, with their tremendous capacity for data collection, contribute to a growth in self-diagnoses. For example, invited to log our every moment of sadness through a “trustworthy” avatar from our app (gamification), we can easily make too much of normal moments of discomfort, immediately seeing them – with a simple computation – transformed into something pathological in need of a cure.

Details

Digital Health and the Gamification of Life: How Apps Can Promote a Positive Medicalization
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78754-366-9

Keywords

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 14 December 2018

Abstract

Details

Sport, Mental Illness, and Sociology
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-469-1

Abstract

Details

Household Self-Tracking during a Global Health Crisis
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-915-3

Book part
Publication date: 13 December 2021

Des Quinn, Vaughan Ellis and James Richards

Fewer than half of UK start-up businesses survive beyond five years (ONS, 2020). The Scottish Small Business Survey of 2019 found competition in the market and uncertainty as to…

Abstract

Fewer than half of UK start-up businesses survive beyond five years (ONS, 2020). The Scottish Small Business Survey of 2019 found competition in the market and uncertainty as to how to face it were considered the most significant barrier to success by almost half of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) (Scottish Government, 2020). This chapter considers how four Scottish breweries have formulated start-up strategies to respond to competition in an ever-increasingly crowded marketplace in order to maximise their likelihood of survival. The findings from each of these case studies are presented in an accessible format, and indicate that a variety of approaches to the development of the businesses can be adopted, albeit planned approaches dominate. Drawing on real life experiences of four successful businesses, the practical choices they took provide guidance and inspiration for other aspiring craft beer entrepreneurs in selecting an appropriate approach to and content of their founding strategy.

Details

Researching Craft Beer: Understanding Production, Community and Culture in An Evolving Sector
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-185-0

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 31 July 2023

Hillary Steinberg

Gender and disability are intimately connected as embodied experiences that young people navigate interactionally. Disabilities scholars have theorized that men and women with…

Abstract

Gender and disability are intimately connected as embodied experiences that young people navigate interactionally. Disabilities scholars have theorized that men and women with chronic health conditions face uniquely gendered challenges. Theories of gender and disability centered on youth continue to gain prominence as the population of children and young adults with chronic health conditions grows. This study draws on data from 22 in-depth interviews with young adults diagnosed with chronic health conditions in childhood in the United States. Women, men, and gender nonbinary individuals report that doing disability in interactions in childhood meant doing gender in expected feminine ways. Specifically, interviewees described increased empathy, a deep understanding of their own emotions, and the ability to use adversity to connect with and benefit others as expectations. Interviewees employed or resisted doing gender in ways that reflected individuals' gender locations. Women and nonbinary individuals saw feminine performance as a sign of weakness, often resisting demonstrating it in interactions. On the other hand, feminine performance reportedly impacted men in the sample in positive ways. This study takes a life course approach to illuminate how the ableist expectations expressed to disabled children are gendered and impact how disabled young adults negotiate an ableist world.

Details

Disabilities and the Life Course
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-202-5

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Creative Ageing and the Arts of Care: Reframing Active Ageing
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-435-9

Book part
Publication date: 14 December 2018

Michael Atkinson

To outline the experiential nature of hidden mental illnesses (or “invisible disabilities”) in sport and physical cultures. A sociological account is given of how people living…

Abstract

Purpose

To outline the experiential nature of hidden mental illnesses (or “invisible disabilities”) in sport and physical cultures. A sociological account is given of how people living with a hidden mental illness or disorder manage their identities in physical culture.

Approach

The chapter begins by addressing the role of social stigma as a barrier to sport and exercise participation for young people living with hidden mental illnesses. From there, and venturing beyond typical sociological tropes about social stigma, the chapter presents ethnographic findings from a study of people living with epilepsy and their tactical uses of a range of physical cultures to craft their selves in innovative ways.

Findings

People living with so-called simple or nonmajor “hidden/invisible” disabilities are often overlooked as a differential needs population with sport and health zones. The people in this study identify how the desire to be mobile, self-expressive, and authentic through the physical activity pursuits is important yet unavailable to them in a wide range of sport, leisure, and health fields because of the ways in which these places privilege particular types of brain and bodies. Through their own self-styled physical cultural involvements, however, these people challenge the dominance of sport-based model of health promotion in broader culture and disrupt dominant ideological frames that privilege the normative, rational, calculating, and predictable brain in athletic zones.

Research Implications

The importance of identifying persons who may not participate in sport and physical culture due to perceived and felt stigma is highlighted. In addition, developing creative strategies and programs for these populations is underscored.

Details

Sport, Mental Illness, and Sociology
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-469-1

Keywords

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