Understanding the Impact of Globalization on Food Preferences, Dietary Patterns, and Health

The main purpose of Ecology of Food and Nutrition (EFN) is to promote scholarly debate and engagement on the holistic and cross-cultural dimensions of the study of food and nutrition. It emphasizes foods and food systems not only in terms of their utilization to satisfy human nutritional needs and health, but also to promote and contest social and cultural identity. Articles published in this issue of EFN examine the complex relationship between globalization and food. These articles are based on research conducted by using both multidisciplinary theoretical perspectives and methods to examine such topics as food prestige and preferences, household food insecurity, globalization and local food cultures, and long-term effects of childhood trauma in adult health. These articles also showcase the diversity of topics and emerging research interests in the field of globalization and food. The article by Maxfield et al. describes the results of study that used anthropological methods, especially methods in cognitive anthropology, to examine the complex relationship between globalization and food prestige among adolescents in a small and “least-developed” urban center in India. The authors report that regardless of socioeconomic differences, adolescents share a single cultural model to identify foods as most prestigious. In addition, one of the key contributing factors to the prestige of foods among adolescents is that they are considered nontraditional or foreign foods. Finally, the authors conclude that the so-called prestigious foods are generally less healthy and processed. Such emic categorizations of non-traditional or foreign foods not only influence on food preferences and consumption patterns, but also exemplify how globalization influences local food cultures. The article by Rodrigues et al. examines the dimensions of food insecurity in urban and rural households in Chadapa dos Veadeiros, Brazil. A unique aspect of this article is that the authors presented results of their analyzed diverse set of data on 110 domestic units (51 in an urban setting and 59 in a rural setting). The data used in this study includes household income, individual interviews on food consumption patterns, and fingernail samples to analyze of the ratio of carbon and nitrogen in fingernails. Data analysis suggests low food variability and heavy reliance on processed food in both rural and urban households. Rodrigues et al. draw conclusions which are similar to the ones drawn by Maxfield et al. that globalization of food in changing food preferences and dietary patterns in communities. Based on a rigorous analysis of dietary intake data, Shariff et al. report the findings of their examination of the relationship, if any, between high dietary energy density food and stunting among children (1-10 years old) in Wilayah Persekutuan and Selangor, western Malaysian. The authors make a strong case that diets higher energy density are associated with greater prevalence of stunting, but not overweight and obesity, among children in urban Malaysia. ECOLOGY OF FOOD AND NUTRITION 2016, VOL. 55, NO. 4, 339–340 http://dx.doi. org/10.1080/03670244.2016. 1213557