ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates many studies of food consumption, its interaction with social class and its impact on health. Because the relationship between obesity and health risk has dominated discourses regarding food consumption in both the media and public policy. The chapter focuses initially on the evidence for the obesity-health link, as well as the social gradient for obesity. It examines non-obese diet-related health problems and the social gradient of such outcomes. Obesity rates increased among children of both manual and non-manual parental employment categories, but the increase was sharper in those in manual households. Studies which examine obesity in an international context contribute unique perspectives on the relationship between socio-economic structures, political ideology, and obesity levels. Canoy and Buchan find an association between low socio-economic status in childhood and higher body mass index (BMI) in adulthood.
