ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Bourdieu's depiction of habitus takes us further than Anthony Giddens can in understanding human action in the domain of diet. Giddens's writings on reflexivity are deserving of detailed discussion because of their prominence within the academy, their influence on both discourse and policy, and arguably a degree of inconsistency where questions of diet and choice are concerned. Through food product development, food processing, packaging, advertising and marketing campaigns and retailing strategies, a range of images, cues and practices are continually absorbed by the habitus, altering it over time. Habermas thought illuminates the apparently paradoxical situation in which a habitus seemingly set in a given social context can nevertheless, over time, engage in altered social practices, including diet, with implications for bodyweight and health. Habermas analyses how a range of systems including politics, liberal capitalism, technical progress and even marketing interact with the social worlds of individuals.
