Changes in the social context and conduct of eating in four Nordic countries between 1997 and 2012.

How have eating patterns changed in modern life? In public and academic debate concern has been expressed that the social function of eating may be challenged by de-structuration and the dissolution of traditions. We analyzed changes in the social context and conduct of eating in four Nordic countries over the period 1997-2012. We focused on three interlinked processes often claimed to be distinctive of modern eating: delocalization of eating from private households to commercial settings, individualization in the form of more eating alone, and informalization, implying more casual codes of conduct.

Destructuration or continuity? The daily rhythm of eating in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden in 1997 and 2012.

There is a widely shared belief that contemporary eating culture is undergoing a process of 'destructuration' in which collective norms guiding temporal, social, and spatial aspects of eating as well as cuisine will decline or disappear. From another theoretical perspective one could argue that shared and regular patterns are quite resistant to change because they are functionally necessary for the organization and maintenance of social actions in everyday life. Using questionnaire data from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden from the years 1997 and 2012 we investigate whether culturally shared timing of eating rhythms has disappeared or declined.