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Purpose – In this chapter, we seek to explore the collective responsibilities undertaken by the family as a whole in maintaining familial bonds through meal consumption. We draw on work which examines the role of gift giving (Ruskola, 2005), sharing (Belk, 2010) and sacrifice (Miller, 1998) in consumption. We take an original approach which does not look at the family meal in isolation but rather focuses on the patterning of meals and the relationships between them.

Methodology – The ethnographic study draws on interviews with 18 families and follows up mealtime observations with 15 families.

Findings – The analysis reveals a mealtime patterning involving collective participation in saving (in the form of consuming ordinary and thrifty meals during the week) and spending (in consuming extraordinary meals at weekends). Even if in the women and mothers in the household tend to sacrifice themselves more than other family members, the consumption of thrifty or ordinary meals implies a process of sacrifice involving the entire family. In viewing the meal as gift, we also observe a process of reciprocity in operation with family members obliged to both share in, and contribute to, the meals that have been cooked for them.

Social implication – Our analysis reveals discordances between the aspirations of family members (which are arguably largely based on cultural ideals), and their everyday experiences of family mealtimes.

Originality/Value – The chapter show how these micro experiences of family mealtimes have implications for a macro understanding of the idealised and culturally loaded construct of the family meal.

This study aims to, with family structures in urban China becoming increasingly diverse, examine how and to what extent the characteristics of everyday family meals relate to the establishment and strengthening of a collective sense of the Chinese family. Integrating ritual and family identity theories developed through studies conducted in the West, the research explores the relationship between family identity and the major dimensions that characterize ritualistic practices through an examination of family dinners in a non-Western context.

The mixed-method approach combines a qualitative phase (focus groups and interviews) with a large-scale survey of households (n = 1,319) in four Chinese cities.

The results find a positive relationship between family identity and commitment to family meals, as well as continuity promoted through family meals, at a 99 per cent confidence level.

One important research limitation is that the sample was limited to four cities. In addition, it is difficult for quantitative measures to capture the richness of emotionally and symbolically laden constructs, such as communication, commitment, continuity and family identity.

The results provide insights into the meanings of family meals in China. With over one-third of household expenditures spent on food in Chinese cities, the formulation of brand positions and promotions can be informed through a greater understanding of the influence of family dynamics on food consumption.

The findings indicate that, within China’s dynamic environment of changing family values, strengthening the ritualistic characteristics of everyday family activities, such as family meals, can lead to an increase in a collective sense of family.

The study demonstrates under what conditions, within this rapidly changing socioeconomic environment, the family dinner provides stability and a sense of unity for Chinese families. In China, a trend toward individualization is accompanied by a deep-seeded sense of obligation toward family that exerts an important influence on meal composition and patterns.

The purpose of this study is to explore the association between eating patterns, social identity and the well-being of adolescents via a mixed methods study of Chinese teenagers. The specific research questions presented in this study are as follows: What is the relationship between social eating and well-being? How is the relationship between social eating and well-being mediated by social identity?

This study is based on a sequential mixed methods study, including interviews with 16 teenage–parent dyads, and a large-scale survey of over 1,000 teenagers on their eating patterns, conducted with the support of public schools. A model that tests relationships among social eating, social identity and subjective well-being is developed and tested.

The results show that dining with family members leads to improved subjective well-being for teenagers, through a partial mediator of stronger family identity. However, dining with peers is not found to influence subjective well-being.

The privileged position of family meals demonstrated through this study may be an artifact of the location of this study in one Chinese city. Further research is needed related to the connections among social identity, objective well-being and the social patterns of teenagers’ food consumption behavior.

To improve the subjective well-being of teenagers, families, public policy-makers and food marketers should support food consumption patterns that promote family meals.

While many food-related consumer studies focus on the individual, social and environmental influences of food choices of adolescents, few studies address how eating patterns affect overall well-being. These results reinforce the importance of understanding the effect of the social context of teenagers’ eating patterns on health and well-being.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the family dinner in Los Angeles County, California, focusing on the role of commercial foods and the time invested in food preparation. Popular media emphasize the increasing use of processed commercial foods in the USA.

A total of 64 dinner preparation and consumption events were videotaped and observed (32 families, two weeknights each). Observations determined the source of food served (restaurant, take‐out, or home‐cooked), the ingredients and dishes in each meal prepared at home, and the time required to prepare it.

The findings in this paper showed that, even when prepared at home, most evening meals included processed commercial foods in at least moderate amounts. Home‐cooked meals required an average of 34 minutes' “hands‐on time” and 52 minutes' “total time” to prepare. Heavy use of commercial foods saved, on average, ten to 12 minutes, hands‐on time but did not reduce total preparation time. Commercial foods require more limited cooking skills and permit more complex dishes or meals to be prepared within a given time‐frame than do raw ingredients. They may also reduce time investment at stages other than meal preparation, such as shopping.

This paper provides a rare glimpse of food preparation and meal consumption behavior on the family level. Most reports on US food habits are based on survey and purchasing data, rather than direct observation of household activities as used here.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the self-reported food skills, cooking confidence and practices amongst a sample of parents on the Island of Ireland (IOI) and to highlight jurisdictional similarities and differences between Northern Ireland (NI) and the Republic of Ireland (ROI).

Parents (n=363) on the IOI completed a questionnaire exploring confidence levels of food skills, cooking techniques executed and the identification of barriers which might impact on meal preparation. Non-probability convenience sampling was utilised.

The majority of parents (75 per cent) learned their basic cooking skills from their mother with home economics classes being the second most popular source of learning. There were a number of statistically significant jurisdictional differences. For example, when preparing dinners, NI parents were less likely to enjoy cooking and more likely to use processed foods such as breaded frozen chicken and jars of sauces than ROI (x²=56.167, df=1, p<0.001). Similarly, parents in NI were less likely to involve family members in meal preparation (x²=17.939, df=1, p<0.001). Parents in the ROI reported higher confidence levels than NI parents when cooking from basic ingredients; following a simple recipe and preparing new foods. Over half (51 per cent) of parents identified barriers to cooking with fresh ingredients as: time, cost, busy family life and limited facilities.

Findings indicate that parents would benefit from exposure to practical food skills intervention focussed on quick, nutritious family meals while simultaneously developing parents’ culinary skills and cooking confidence in home cooked meal preparation.

There is a lack of information pertaining to food skills and cooking confidence amongst parents on the IOI.

The aim of this paper is to explore parents' and teens' perspectives on the significance of being able to cook.

In this qualitative study, 22 families participated in in‐depth interviews that explored their perspectives on food in the family and the significance of being able to cook. The sample was socio‐economically diverse and drew from one urban and one rural community in British Columbia, Canada.

The main themes from participants' descriptions of the significance of home cooking were that home cooking gave families control over their food supply, helped them to connect to others, enabled them to explore their own and others' food cultures and, in the case of teens, become more independent.

The paper shows that the familial motivations for home cooking go beyond concerns for health or home economy and would benefit from further exploration.

For food producers and retailers, cooking instructors, dieticians, food scholars and writers, understanding familial motivations for home cooking provides the opportunity to better target family cooks with food products or services, and to encourage increased home cooking as a means to promote healthier, more sustainable diets and socially rich family food practices.

A perceived broad‐based decline in home cooking has received a great deal of attention in the UK and elsewhere. In contrast, this paper describes how participating families really do see value in home cooking—though they place as much emphasis on social, cultural and personal motivations as they do nutritional health.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the challenges of using participant-produced photographs in family food research.

Families participating in a study on family dinners agreed to take photos of their weekday evening meal using their mobile phone and a Selfie-Stick. These images were subsequently used as a photo elicitation cue in a long interview.

“Selfies” or participant directed photographs, are a way to involve all family members in the research. Giving participants control over the composition and production of the image reveals how participants see themselves and how they wish to be seen while uncovering some of the physical, material and social realities of contemporary family practice. Photographs not only capture rich contextual and spatial details but also act as an aide memoir and interview stimulus to investigate broader socialisation around family feeding. Visual images reveal otherwise unrecalled aspects of the family dinner and encourage more reflection and discussion by participants around the social realities of their family practice. Photographs taken using a mobile phone and selfie stick complement and stimulate traditional methods of qualitative investigation.

The paper contributes to the debate about the challenges in using visual methods and how the selfie technique can be used, the photographs shared and visual data incorporated as part of the research method. As communicative affordances, the mobile phone, camera and selfie stick frame the practices around family dinner and afford the subject an agentic perspective as both producer and consumer of the image.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the changes that have taken place in the family and relate these changes to where and how people eat.

Female heads of household were surveyed via telephone interviews to identify the characteristics of how the modern family dines. The telephone interview was conducted by a commercial research organization and used random digit dialing methods to identify potential respondents. The personal telephone interview was conducted by trained interviewers provided by the research supplier. The respondents were screened to insure that the respondent was a head of household.

Data revealed that families are reacting to time pressures in a way that changes the way they prepare foods while not affecting the end result. Overall, 75 percent of families eat as a family in the home five or more nights per week. In addition, 85 percent of those who eat together four nights a week or fewer, claim they would like to eat at home more often with their families. Today, families are eating together, even if it means making mealtime part of the daily multi‐tasking ritual. The extent to which families actually make a point to eat meals together could be an invaluable and irreplaceable component of healthy family relations. Culture, economy, and society have changed and people have again started ensuring that eating together occurs on a daily basis.

The paper highlights how the changing role of the family can dramatically influence the food industry.

This purpose of this study is to examine the fluidity of family life which continues to attract attention. This is increasingly significant for the intergenerational relationship between adult children and their elderly parents. Using practice theory, the aims are to understand the role of food in elderly families and explore how family practices are maintained when elderly transition into care.

A phenomenological research approach was used as the authors sought to build an understanding of the social interactions between family and their lifeworld.

This study extends theory on the relationship between the elderly parent and their family and explores through practice theory how families performed their love, how altered routines and long standing rituals provided structure to the elderly relatives and how care practices were negotiated as the elderly relatives transitioned from independence to dependence and towards care. A theoretical framework is introduced that provides guidance for the transition stages and the areas for negotiation.

This research has implications for food manufacturers and marketers, as the demand for healthy food for the elderly is made more widely available, healthy and easy to prepare. The limitations of the research are due to the sample located in East Yorkshire only.

This research has implications for brand managers of food manufacturers and supermarkets that need to create product lines that target this segment by producing healthy, convenience food.

It is also important for health and social care policy as the authors seek to understand the role of food, family and community and how policy can be devised to provide stability in this transitional and uncertain lifestage.

This research extends the body of literature on food and the family by focussing on the elderly cared for and their family. The authors show how food can be construed as loving care, and using practice theory, a theoretical framework is developed that can explain the transitions and how the family negotiates the stages from independence to dependence.