Genevieve Bell
In this economic climate, it’s no surprise that more and more people are making their own meals from scratch. Food & Wine magazine says home cooking is the hottest food trend of 2009, and the market-research firm Information Resources says supermarket shoppers are cooking more from scratch and spending more on basic cooking ingredients than on convenient but costly frozen and refrigerated foods.
Home-cooked meals are typically more healthful than those prepared at restaurants. But just how much more healthful depends on who’s doing the cooking, where the recipe comes from, and even the dishes in which the food is served.
Studies show that the biggest influence on family eating habits is the person who buys and prepares the food. These “nutritional gatekeepers,” as researchers call them, influence more than 70 percent of the foods we eat, according to a 2006 report in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association — not just home meals but children’s lunches, snacks eaten outside the home, and even what family members order at restaurants.
Public health researchers first identified the role of nutritional gatekeeper during World War II, when meat shipments to the troops threatened to create a protein crisis at home. The goal was to educate families about alternatives to meat, but it wasn’t clear at whom to direct the information campaign.
At the time, many people believed that husbands and children strongly influenced the foods served in the home. But research led by the anthropologist Margaret Mead found that the wives and mothers who bought and prepared the food had far more influence than anyone realized, including the women themselves.
These days, the family gatekeeper may be a mother or a father, a grandparent, a housekeeper or a nanny. And Brian Wansink, director of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell, says these people need to be aware of their importance to family nutrition.
A gatekeeper who struggles with unhealthy habits and eating choices will typically pass those problems on to family members. By the same token, gatekeepers who improve their habits can improve the health of the whole family.
To learn more about gatekeepers, the Cornell researchers More . . .
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Also check out Well, Tara Parker-Pope’s blog on Health, at NYTimes.com Blogs.
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Picture Credit: The New York Times, Stuart Bradford
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