Article

My dad’s a ‘barbie’ man and my mum’s the cooking girl: Boys and the social construction of food and nutrition

Journal of Child Health Care 2015, Vol. 19(3) 279–292 ª The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1367493513508846 chc.sagepub.com

Murray Drummond and Claire Drummond Flinders University, Australia

Abstract Academics from a variety of disciplines claim that gender has an influence on men’s and women’s food choices and portion sizes at mealtime and snack time. While these socially constructed norms present health-related implications for both men and women, it is arguable that men have a greater risk of problems associated with overweight as a consequence of gendered food choices and dietary practices. This article reports on qualitative research data attained from Australian boys in early childhood and middle primary school years. The data were thematically analysed using inductive analysis. The voices of boys provide the opportunity to understand how gendered food choices, among males, emerge in contemporary Western culture. Such research can also potentially play a role in developing strategies to assist boys in making healthy food selection, which will ultimately assist their food-related health literacy as they move towards adolescence and adulthood. Keywords Child health, focus groups, health promotion, qualitative approaches

Boys and food This article is based on qualitative interviews with Australian boys between the ages of five and nine years. Noteworthy is that it is the same cohort of 33 boys who have been interviewed each year from five years of age. The basis of the research project is to investigate changes associated with masculinities within the context of health, sport and physical activity. There has been a range

Corresponding author: Murray Drummond, Flinders University, GPO Box 5001, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia. Email: [email protected]

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of issues raised by the boys, which have been reported elsewhere; however, one of the most striking issues to arise over the past four years is that of their understanding of, and relationship with, food. This article will report on boys’ attitudes, perceptions and meaning of food in their lives. It will seek to explore how boys view food in their lives particularly through a healthoriented and gendered lens. There have been arguments made in the past, suggesting men and women in Western culture have different attitudes and behaviours towards food. In one study by Beardsworth et al. (2002), they refer to women’s ‘virtuous’ attitudes associated with the maintenance of the slender body, while for men, their attitude towards food was argued to be ‘robust’. This ideology fits in well with Connell’s (1983) early article on men’s bodies, claiming that society has established a model whereby women’s bodies are supposed to conserve space whereas men’s bodies are meant to occupy space.

Bigger is better There have been numerous articles espousing the significance of size in the construction of a man’s masculine identity (Drummond, 1996, 2005, 2011; Pope et al., 2000) and a resultant ‘drive for muscularity’ (see e.g. McCreary and Sasse, 2000; Morrison et al., 2003). It has been suggested that this association between size and masculinity has been historically driven (Pope et al., 2000) and further socioculturally endorsed (Drummond, 2011). In doing so, this supports the notion of maintaining and perpetuating the big masculine male as the archetypal Western cultural ideal. This is particularly relevant for straight men where heteronormativity is crucial to masculine identity, as it is often played out in opposition to women who have been socioculturally driven towards a smaller thinner ideal (Drummond, 2011). Historically the notion of size among men has been associated with formidability and being a worthy adversary (Connell, 1983). The problem with size in contemporary Western society is that it can also become synonymous with fatness. The current obesity discourse being played out in the media, and in Western society in general, has led to an abhorrence around fatness, which in turn can negatively impact upon individuals who are perceived as being fat (Gard and Wright, 2005). What we are seeing now in males is the point of differentiation between size linked with overweight and obesity as opposed to size associated with muscle mass. It is clear that a cultural shift has emerged within contemporary Western culture, which is now placing increased emphasis on lean muscle mass as an archetypal ideal. This is in contrast to the disdain for weight associated with fatness (Gard and Wright, 2005). In terms of archetypal masculinity, the desirable size comes from muscularity and is closely linked with strength (Drummond, 2012). The notion of strength has also long been a signifier of masculinity in its own right. Importantly, the smallness and thinness of a man has been linked with both femininity and being gay (Drummond, 2005). Therefore, the size of a man plays an important role in the perception of one’s masculinity and a man’s own self-identity. For straight men, being big is the perceived antithesis of being gay. For many gay men, being big is also a desire as it provides the opportunity to ‘mask’ their sexuality and allow them to ‘act’ straight and pass in a heteronormative culture (Drummond, 2005; Klein, 1993). Despite the importance placed on muscularity as an archetypal ideal for men within Western culture, there is still, arguably, an overarching sense of ‘bigger is better’ for most males. However, this does come with several caveats. One of those being that size of the individual is not visibly overweight or obese. Being visibly overweight or obese within Western culture is associated with stigmatisation irrespective of gender (Puhl and Brownell, 2012). Therefore, men, who appear large

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yet not visibly overweight or obese, are afforded certain privileges associated with their size pertaining to perceptions of masculinity. This is certainly based on gender ideology that has historically depicted men as having to occupy space in opposition to women who have had to conserve space (Connell, 1983; see also Drummond, 1996). The implications of such an ideology have meant that boys and men have been culturally endorsed to eat food more often, and in larger quantities, than girls and women. This endorses the socially constructed perception around masculinity and size, while simultaneously supporting the notion of femininity and reduced size.

Men and food Food choice is a gendered construct within Western culture. Wardle et al. (2004) claim that this is evidenced by men’s diets, which are often poorer than women’s diets throughout the Western world. However, problematically, in terms of research, we know little about the way in which gender shapes eating habits and food choices (Roos et al., 1998). Specifically in relation to men, Julier and Lindenfeld (2005) claim that, while food studies and masculinity studies have become important fields of scholarship in their own right, there has been a paucity of academic analysis with regard to men and food. There has been an even smaller emphasis on boys and food choices, which this article aims to address. Drummond and Smith (2006) have noted that men’s health-based food choices may be more related to health literacy than gender, with respect to specific food choices. Whereas Counihan and Kaplan (2004) claim that specific food choices are gender related. For example, Gal and Wilkie (2010) have suggested that meat, alcohol and large portion sizes are potentially more related to masculinity, whereas fruit, fish, vegetables and yogurt have closer associations with femininity. Sobal (2005) also argues that the masculinised notion of eating meat can be a site for contestation among men and women particularly in marriage and other domestic relationships, such is the role of gender in food choice. In a study conducted by Gal and Wilkie (2010) in which male and female University students were offered foods based on names, it was the males who chose foods that had seemingly more ‘masculine’ features such as ‘hearty’ as opposed to ‘luscious’ that was regarded as more feminine. Similarly ‘Western Salad’ was seen as more masculine than ‘Nature Salad’. Presumably, the word ‘Western’ conjures the thoughts of cowboys in the same vein as the archetypal masculine Western heroes of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. ‘Natural’, on the other hand, has had a long history of association with feminised beauty and dietary products and arguably the most feminised act of natural childbirth (Macdonald, 2006). The study also revealed that women’s choices were not as restrictive and therefore, they claim, not as conforming to gender norms. Men have an interesting historical relationship with food. Traditional masculine role models in Western culture have been portrayed largely as the male being the family ‘breadwinner’. While this has been linked with financial earning capacity, the use of the term breadwinner has connotations with food, given the significance of food as a source of life and men’s role in providing that food to the family. Contrastingly, it has been the woman’s role in the family to undertake the ‘caring work’ (De Vault, 1991), which included food preparation and maintaining family health (Beagan et al., 2008). In her renowned study ‘Feeding the Family’, De Vault (1991) challenges the focus of women’s caring work in the production of the heteronormative family. She argues that women’s role in providing food for the family is perceived as being more than merely the provision of nutritional sustenance. She states that a woman’s role in the family has been constructed such that ‘the food provided for a family cannot just be any food, but must be food that will satisfy them’ (1991: 40). Clearly these are seen as gender-constructed ideologies just as much as the notion of

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‘man as breadwinner’. Therefore, the way we go about discussions around food and the way in which food practices are enacted within the family play a significant role in determining how children perceive food, the types of foods they eat, their food choices and preferences, and the associated socially constructed gendered rituals such as the purchasing and cooking of food. The significance of this research, particularly around gender and food preparation, is highlighted in the claim made by Kemmer (2000), when she stated that: the tendency of researchers of food in the domestic setting to focus on women and exclude men from contributing to the data undermines men’s contribution and reinforces the identity of cooking as a feminine task.

This research is not using the voices of men to highlight the issues they perceive as being important within the context of food and nutrition. Rather the voices of boys will provide a unique looking glass through which we are able to understand the development of gendered ideologies around food consumption and food preparation practices.

Men and food portion size Within contemporary Western culture, food portion sizes have been gradually increasing (ElloMartin et al., 2005). Fast-food outlets have been at the forefront of ‘supersizing’ meals and specific calorie-dense food items such as burgers, chips and French fries, deep-fried processed food, sweet drinks and ice cream, to name a few items. It appears that males in particular have been susceptible to the changing food portion sizes and bore the brunt of the associated negative implications such as potential overweight and obesity and related lifestyle diseases. For example, in a portion size study conducted in the UK in which individuals selected preferred food items, Benson (2009) identified that males regularly chose significantly larger portion sizes of heavy carbohydrate-based foods. Further, 80% of women stated that they would never buy a ‘supersized’ portion at a fastfood store, whereas 29% of males stated that they would always choose a ‘supersize’ portion. The same study also highlighted that it is frequently the most popular types of snacks that are sold in larger portion sizes, such as high-calorie foods including chocolate bars, chips and biscuits and labelled ‘king-size’ or supersize. The alarming area of concern is the preliminary data indicated that, on average, younger people consumed more snacks than middle aged and elderly people and specifically males tended to consume more snacks per day than females. This is problematic for boys and young males.

The research The data arise from a longitudinal qualitative research project with boys from early childhood through to completion of primary school in year 7. The project has now been running for five years across six separate data collection periods, that is, reception – year 4. The data have been broken up into early childhood years, which include; reception – year 2 (age: 5–7) and middle school – years 3 to 4 (age: 8–10). The parents of 44 boys in an upper middle class suburban school in Adelaide, South Australia, were contacted to provide consent for their boy (or boys) to be involved in this longitudinal project based on sport, health and masculinities. Consent was achieved for 33 boys to be involved in the project for the duration of 8 years. Institutional ethics approval was also attained.

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The boys were interviewed in focus groups of around four boys per group. It was important these interviews were not seen as formal interview sites in which the interviewer was in a position of ‘power’. It was crucial that these boys understood that what they stated was confidential between the group and the interviewer. They also needed to feel comfortable that the interviewer would not convey any specific information about a child back to the teacher or parent (apart from mandatory reporting, which is required by institutional ethics). While Patton (2002: 385) states ‘the focus group interview is, first and foremost, an interview’ he goes on to claim that it is an interview whereby each participant has the opportunity to hear others’ views and opinions, thus establishing the most important issues for that group. Fontana and Frey (2000: 651) concur by claiming that the focus group interview is a technique for gathering rich, descriptive qualitative data in a systematic manner that ‘straddles the line between formal and informal interviewing’. Finally, as Patton (2002: 386) aptly states, the object of the focus group ‘is to get high-quality data in a social context where people can consider their own views in the context of the views of others’. In this research, the way in which the interviews were conducted enabled open discussion around a broad range of topics associated with nutrition, physical activity and health across all age groups from early childhood through to middle primary school. Each interview, which lasted between 20 and 30 minutes, was audio recorded using a digital audio recorder and then transcribed verbatim. It was essential to use an interview guide to allow the interviewer to maintain a specific line of enquiry and to enable a set of core questions and topics to be broached. This was important, given that interviews with very young children can quickly move away from the intended topic. The guide was developed in close association with the literature and within the context of the researchers’ expertise and experience in the area. Additionally, in the first two rounds of interviews when the boys were five to six years of age, they were each asked to draw pictures of aspects associated with sport, health and physical activity. The principle behind this methodology was based on providing the boys with the opportunity to create a visual image and then discuss it with the researcher and the rest of the group. The method was not intended to be a psychoanalytic interpretation of the drawings. Rather, it was designed to elicit extremely rich descriptive data about their personal perspective of an aspect of sport, health and physical activity. The boys were interviewed in a variety of settings within the school environment. For example, some of the interviews were conducted at outdoor tables in the playground, others were at tables located in hallways outside the classroom, while others were conducted in an adjacent classroom that was not being used. It was imperative that boys felt at ease during the interview and that the researcher was not seen to be in a position of power and influence, as they might perceive a teacher to be. Each of the interviews was conducted in close proximity to the classroom, while being far enough away that they could not be heard. This created a very open and engaging atmosphere from the outset and has continued to be the case in all of the subsequent interview rounds over the ensuing years. The boys’ data are contextually relevant to their age cohort (Drummond et al., 2009) and provide an important window through which we can understand the way in which boys perceive health within the context of their lives. There is certainly a plethora of literature about children’s well-being. However, as Drummond et al. have identified, ‘absent from this literature are the voices of the children themselves; the majority of studies in this area are about children and on children, but rarely include children’ (2009: 4). Rather than seeking to replicate and add to the dominant adult discourse that reflects on children’s health, this article will present the voices of early childhood and middle years of primary school on issues relating to food, nutrition and health that they perceive as significant in their lives. Noteworthy is that while a broad range of issues were

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raised by the boys, this article will specifically address food and nutrition that is an underrepresented area of boys health and one that has been identified as being an area of gendered concern for males (Julier and Lindenfeld, 2005).

Data analysis The interviews were transcribed verbatim and then open coded (Strauss and Corbin, 1998) and analysed using inductive analysis. This type of analysis involves identifying categories, patterns and themes in data by means of interaction with the data (Patton, 2002). The authors’ personal understanding, professional knowledge and the literature (Strauss, 1987) allowed for similarities and differences in the data to be documented. Trustworthiness at the level of analysis was achieved through the authors comparing and contrasting emergent themes.

Themes In this section, the themes associated with food and nutrition that emerged from the interviews with boys aged between 5 and 10 will be presented. These include health ¼ food, gender and food choice (boys eat pizza), gender and food preparation (dads cook the barbecue).

Health ¼ food The concept of health is a complex construct for children. From a child’s perspective, it appears that health is almost entirely based on biophysical aspects. It is arguable that biomedical descriptors are the dominant framework around which children base their understanding of health. This notion, first coined as ‘healthism’ by Crawford in 1980, provides an understanding of the way in which children can adopt, endorse and perpetuate this ideology throughout their childhood until the belief that the biomedical model is singularly the most important, and sometimes only, framework around which Western cultural health can be framed. Within this research, the boys were offered the opportunity to discuss their notion of health without having previously been challenged as to its meaning within the context of their life. They were initially asked to draw ‘things’ that they perceived to be healthy. Some drew sporting activities, while others drew outdoor environments including the beach. However, the majority of the boys drew fruits and vegetables. With the ensuing discussion around the meaning of these drawings, it was interesting to note that most of the boys held similar views around the notion of individual health. It was evident that their view of health was also dominated by a biomedical food and nutrition discourse. That is, as a number of the boys in early childhood suggested, ‘if you eat healthy foods then you will be healthy’. Q: A: A: A: A: A: A: A: Q:

What do you think the word healthy means? Healthy means . . . Eat fresh . . . Eating good food like apples, fruit . . . Vegetables and fruit and all that healthy kind of thing. I think healthy meansBreadEating healthy. Joe, what do you think healthy means?

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A: It’s about eating fruit and eating vegetables. In another focus group, the eight- to nine-year-old boys stated similar thoughts claiming: Q: So tell me what you think healthy means. A: It means eating a lot of good food, just basically – yeah. Q: Okay, that’s good. What do you think, Caine? A: Yeah, like eating healthy food. Not eating too much chocolate and sugar. A: Yeah. Like you’re not allowed to eat chocolate. You just have to have a little bit of chocolate. A: Yes. Q: Okay. A: Now it’s Flynn’s turn. Q: Flynn, what do you think? A: Don’t eat bad things. Like, you don’t have to eat vegetables all the time. Don’t be a vegetarian. Just like, you’re allowed to eat junk food. But just a bit of it. A: Like don’t just go random – all the time just eating like McDonalds or something. You need healthy food as well.

This type of discourse has been the typical dialogue that has dominated all of the interviews since the boy’s first year of school in reception when the interviews began. It is arguable that within this primary school, like many others one might suspect, the healthism discourse, which is strongly underpinned by nutrition, has been delivered in the classroom where students unconsciously place significant academic weight, given that the classroom is a perceived historically, and socially, constructed learning space. The location in which physical activity and exercise is ‘taught’ is situated in a ‘fun place’ away from the classroom with less restrictions and with seemingly less academic rigour. Noteworthy is that the health curriculum in primary schools is predominantly delivered by generalist teachers who have little specialist background in health. However, given that many people, including teachers, have a fundamental understanding of the role of nutrition in people’s lives, the link between food and health is too easily scripted and highlighted as the dominant means to a healthy life. The boys in the research rarely mentioned other aspects that can be associated with health such as physical activity, exercise, leisure time and sleep. These issues were only addressed in the event of them being specifically discussed within the context of the interview guide and raised by the researcher. For example, ‘can you tell about the types of physical activity that you do?’ It is certainly interesting in terms of the way in which food and nutrition has become synonymous with health among children as the boys in the research testified. It is arguable that this has occurred through constant reinforcement of health ¼ food within a socially constructed academic learning environment.

Gender and food choice There have been articles written on the association between gender and the types of food men and women eat. Indeed, according to Cairns et al. ‘there has been a robust literature in feminist scholarship explores how social and cultural meanings attached to food serve to perpetuate unequal gender relations’ (2010: 592). However, there has been a paucity of research that helps us understand the period at which boys and girls begin to separate and acknowledge that men and women can differ in the types of foods they eat and the portion sizes that they consume at mealtime. The boys in this research appeared to have developed a perception of the role of gender in food choice and portion size early on during the early childhood stage. This ideology has

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continued on, and been reinforced, through to the most recent interviews in year 4. In the following discussion, the year 3 boys discuss the notion of both salad and meat being a boy food. The basis of their argument is underpinned by the socially constructed notion of men both wanting and needing more muscles than women, together with the fact that men are stronger and therefore must eat salad and meat. A: Q: A: Q: A: A: Q: A: A: A: A: Q: A: Q: A: Q: A: Q: A:

There are some foods that boys eat more than girls. Well that’s what I think. So what are they? Like salad. Who eats salad? Me. Boys eat more salad than girls. Why? Because boys want to get stronger than girls. Yeah, boys eat more salad than girls. Boys also eat more meat, which makes you stronger. And girls actually eat more fruit than boys? Why? Except for my sister – she’s a . . . Why do girls eat more fruit than boys? Because they have – because there are more girls . . . than boys? No, there’s not. Yes, there is. It is true. Okay, Ben why do boys eat more salad than girls? Because boys are going to get stronger, so they can get fitter, so they can run faster, so they can run . . . – like my dad is really strong. And he’s very tall. Q: Does he eat a lot of salad? A: Yes.

In the following discussion, the boys have concluded that boys eat more meat, whereas girls eat less meat as a consequence of girls’ gender-constructed ideology associated with ‘not being big on eating animals’. This gender-based association with vegetarianism has likely been developed and perpetuated in popular media television and news print media that target women who aspire to a healthier lifestyle and potentially want to lose body fat. Given the ubiquitous nature of such media, the boys have potentially developed a somewhat misguided perspective that links women and vegetarianism together, which in turn means less meat consumption for women. However, from the boys’ perspective girls eating less meat is also closely associated with girls’ needs for cleanliness and a disdain for dirt. It should be noted that once again strength and muscles make up a central part of the narrative. A: Q: A: Q: A: A: A:

I think boys eat more meat. Do they? Yeah, boys eat more meat. Why do they eat more meat? Because girls aren’t big on eating animals. And Cow And they don’t eat as much meat as boys.

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Really? Yeah, different types of sexes. Different types of sexes is it? Yeah. Okay, why do you think girls don’t like eating animals? Because girls are all ‘ooh, ooh’. They’re scared of bulls. Really? Yeah, they’re scared of bulls. So Angus, why do you think boys eat meat? Girls don’t like pig. Why? Because pigs are like, disgusting. They’re big, fat and muddy. And they’re like really fatty and they’re like . . . And do you know what? What? They’ve got really dirty so the might still have a bit of dirt or hair on them or something. The pigs? Yeah. Do boys not care about that? No. Okay, so Angus, I’m really interested in this. Why do boys eat more meat than girls? Because meat makes boys stronger and girls don’t really have to be strong. Don’t they? Why don’t girls have to be strong? Um, I don’t know. It has to do with sport, sort of. Yes. Because boys have more muscles than girls and boys play more sport.

Similarly in the following discussion the boys created an argument based on the same notion. However, in this instance, it was more associated with girls not wanting to touch and eat meat as a result of the association with blood. They also claimed that men have a historical link with eating meat, which legitimises the notion of ‘men as meat eaters’. A: Q: A: Q: A: Q: A: A: A: Q: A: Q:

Boys eat meat. Why? Because meat’s our thing. Meat’s our thing, is it? But why do you think that is? Well back in the olden days there was like Vikings. They had like heaps of meat, like cavemen, and so, they eat so much meat and that’s how we get related with meat. Did the girls eat meat? No, I think they probably ate . . . Tomatoes. No, they probably ate like soup or something. Oh, okay. Or berries from trees. Okay.

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Journal of Child Health Care 19(3) And girls aren’t really keen on eating like, animals. My dad thinks a sandwich isn’t finished without meat. Isn’t finished without meat? So, peanut butter sandwiches aren’t finished without turkey. That’s interesting. There is a reason why girls don’t actually like eating animals and stuff like rabbits and stuff. And they don’t like eating from their hand. Don’t they? And what they don’t like is picking all the meat out of it, just all the blood and stuff and it’s just, they go, ‘Wah, we don’t like it’ It’s exactly the same thing as fish, yeah. Okay, so, boys don’t really care about the blood in the meat, but girls do? Yeah, yeah. Also, boys have more things like schnitzel and go to pubs and stuff like that. Like, if we went to a pub we’d have like, men would have roasts and stuff.

Noteworthy is the concept that once again they were comparing themselves with girls, which offers the boys a point of gender contrast as well as something that enables them to prove that they are not a girl, which is important in this early development of gender identity. It also highlights the significance of something as seemingly innocuous as food choice in terms of it being a signifier of one’s gender.

Food preparation As it has been identified in the literature that food preparation in Western cultural families is often seen as a gendered construct as a consequence of traditional gendered roles. For the majority of boys in this research, it was their mothers who were primarily responsible for preparing the food in their house. Noteworthy, there were some boys who were quite forthright in their response in rejecting this notion and that it was their fathers who cooked most often, about which they appeared very proud. However, it was significant to note that in most of these instances, it was still their mother who undertook the process of shopping for groceries, which is once again a perceived gendered practice among Western cultural households. Indeed in the most recent set of interviews the boys, now in year 4, identified that it was their mother who embraced the entire process of shopping for almost all of the household goods rather than their fathers. It was humorous to listen to the boys enact and role play the ways in which their mothers would swiftly move from one store to the next whether it be clothes, home ware or grocery store in what they regarded as an aimless and time-wasting exercise. The boys’ ideology of shopping has seemingly already been constructed as a woman’s domain. Contrastingly, they claimed that when their fathers needed to purchase a product form a store, they would identify what they need at a shop prior to leaving home and then, as one boy stated, ‘get in and get out without mucking around’. Another boy confirmed this perspective by claiming, ‘men go to a store for what they need and get out quickly’. The other boys in the focus group concurred unanimously. The domain of the kitchen, and the preparation of food in the house, is a complex sociological dynamic with myriad historical and sociocultural factors at play. As identified, the majority of boys clearly articulated that it was their mother who was responsible for cooking and was seen as the best person to do so in the house. The following response was typical of the conversations we have had over the past five years.

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Mum does most of the cooking Your mum okay. Does your dad cook at all? Not really, he only makes salad or when my mum goes on holidays. Okay, so he does the salads? And the take away. And the take away? And my dad does the barbecues and scrambled eggs (makes a funny face) Oh don’t you like scrambled eggs? I do when my mum makes them but my dad. No. So your dad does the barbecue. What sort of stuff does he do on the barbecue? Sausages, steak, beef. All the meat stuff.

Several factors are noteworthy in the conversation above. This notion that one of the boys stated in terms of their dad being the person to make the salad was quite a common sub-theme throughout. It tends to reflect the role of the father as a ‘bit part’ player in the food making process, particularly within the context of the evening meal. As one of the boys stated, dads can cook smaller meals such as scrambled eggs, though certainly not as good as his mother. It is this evening meal that is seen by the boys as the one in which the best cook in the house should be responsible. Other people such as fathers and possibly older siblings could then participate by assisting, making the accompanying salads and setting the table. It is clear that from an early age the boys are establishing the genderconstructed roles associated with food, which suggest within a household fathers are given licence to cook either small meals or ‘all the meat stuff’ outside on the barbecue. It was this final comment in the above discourse that is very poignant in terms of the way in which boys construct their ideology around food preparation at home. Additionally, the significance of meat in a male’s life is reiterated albeit from a cooking and preparatory perspective rather than eating. This same commentary was a common theme running through the majority of the most recent interviews with the boys. For example: Q: So who does most of the cooking in your house? A: My mum and my dad but my dad always cooks the barbecue. My dad can cook inside the house but my mum usually cooks inside. A: My mum cooks more than my dad but my dad cooks quite a lot. Q: Really A: The steak. Q: Hang on, so your mum mainly cooks inside the house but your dad also cooks on the barbecue is that right? A: YeahA: My dad’s a barbie man and my mum’s the cooking girl. Q: What sort of things does your mum cook inside? A: Tacos, curry Q: What sort of stuff does your dad cook in the barbecue? A: Sausages, meat. A: Steak. A: Yeah, he cooks like ribs, sausages, steak, chops and all that.

In the following discourse, the boys identify the notion of ownership associated with men, barbecues and cooking outdoors. The boys also allude to their own gendered initiation into the masculinised barbecue ‘process’.

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Journal of Child Health Care 19(3) Dad does the barbecue. Why’s that? Because mum will burn everything. Really. Yeah, dad definitely does. Because men are more outside people. Men are more outside people are they? I do the barbecue. Do you? Yeah. My dad puts it on and I flick it. I do the barbecue too. Do you? Yeah. Yeah, the same. Do you help your dad? Yeah, my dad puts the stuff on and I do the flipping. So yeah, men are more outside people and they do the barbecues. My mum can’t do barbecues. She burns everything and then I don’t eat it.

Conclusion There are many issues associated with gender and food. This article, which is based on interviews with boys from early childhood (5–6 years) through to middle primary school years (9–10 years), raises several distinct gender-related themes to emerge from the data. Clearly the way in which the focus groups were structured and the make-up of the children within the focus groups naturally influenced the issues that were raised. Therefore, we are not stating that the issues discussed in this article are the only issues that are likely to emerge. However, it is possible to state that based on these data, it is clear that boys have a unique understanding of the role of food and its association with health and with particular gendered ideologies. The boys in this research clearly articulated that they perceived the concept of health to be inextricably linked to food and nutrition, more so than any other factor. The need to more comprehensively understand the reasons associated with this notion of health equating to food above all else is imperative. While it is important that food is seen to be a crucial part of health, it should not be seen as the only way to attain health, nor a panacea, particularly for children who need to learn about a range of health-promoting behaviours and principles. It was clear from the boys’ claims that food and nutrition is a gendered construct for them within their childhood years. For most of the boys, they have distinct perspectives on the types of roles that mothers play in the preparation and delivery of food, which is largely based on traditional gendered stereotypes. These include shopping for grocery items as well as the preparation and cooking of evening meals within the household kitchen. On the other hand, fathers were seen to be the ones who had less involvement in purchasing of family-based food items. They were also the ones in the family who were ‘in charge of the barbecue’ and were responsible for the meat, given its historical association with masculinity and the links with ‘blood’, which is also a socially constructed masculine ideology. There are certainly implications arising from the themes that have emerged within this research with boys in primary school. Some may argue that the boys’ perspectives are unproblematic, given they have little immediate implications for their health and longevity. Some might also suggest that

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these boys may indeed ‘grow out’ of such viewpoints. On the contrary, we argue that there is significant potential for the ideologies maintained by these boys to be developed further and perpetuated across a range of other issues within their lives as they move into adolescence and early adulthood. Certainly the notion of food ¼ health requires ongoing discussion and education with boys in primary schools in order to highlight the role of a more holistic approach to health promotion and health-promoting behaviours. This is very important in the development of young males’ attitudes towards health as they grow older and develop more autonomy and begin to make decisions that may impact upon their health. Developing the knowledge, and related health literacy, associated with health promotion beyond the food ¼ health ideology is imperative for long-term health. Changing gendered perspectives associated with boys and food is crucial in developing nongendered ideologies associated with a range of health-related areas in the lives of boys and young males. At the very least, having boys question why it is their fathers take ‘ownership’ of the barbecue and cook the meat is important in developing critical health perspectives. Similarly questioning why it is primarily their mothers who cook the main evening meal while their fathers provide limited assistance, such as making the salads, provides valuable reflective and critical skills that will assist in long-term personal health as well as development of critical health literacy skills that can be used for life. Funding This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. References Beagan B, Chapman GE, D’Sylva A and Bassett R (2008) ‘It’s just easier for me to do it’: Rationalizing the family division of food work. Sociology 42(4): 653–671. Beardsworth A, Brynan A and Keil T (2002) Women, men and food: The significance of gender for nutritional attitudes and choices. British Food Journal 104(7): 470–491. Benson C (2009) Increasing portion size in Britain. Society, Biology and Human Affairs 74(2): 4–20. Cairns K, Johnston J and Baumann S (2010) Caring about food: Doing gender in the foodies kitchen. Gender and Society 24(5): 591–615 Connell RW (1983) Men’s bodies. Australian Society 2(9): 33–39. Counihan CM and Kaplan SL (2004) Food and Gender: Identity and Power. London, UK: Routledge. Crawford R (1980) Healthism and the medicalization of everyday life. International Journal of Health Services: Planning, Administration and Evaluation 10(3): 365–388. De Vault ML (1991) Feeding the Family: The Social Organization of Caring as Gendered Work. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Drummond M (1996) The social construction of masculinity as it relates to sport: An investigation into the lives of elite male athletes competing in individually-oriented masculinised sports. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia. Drummond MJN (2005) Men’s bodies: Listening to the voices of young gay men. Men and Masculinities 7(3): 270–290. Drummond MJN and Smith J (2006) Ageing men’s understanding of nutrition: Implications for health. Journal of Men’s Health and Gender 3 (1): 56–60. Drummond MJN (2011) Reflections on the archetypal heterosexual male body. Australian Feminist Studies 26(67): 103–117.

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My dad's a 'barbie' man and my mum's the cooking girl: Boys and the social construction of food and nutrition.

Academics from a variety of disciplines claim that gender has an influence on men's and women's food choices and portion sizes at mealtime and snack t...
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