More than convenience: the role of habitus in understanding the food choices of fast food workers

Abstract

This article explores the consumption practices of fast food workers through the lens of Bourdieu, specifically his notion of habitus. The authors address a gap in knowledge in the field of fast food work and explore the ways that the family environment and social relationships outside the family shape adult food choices using qualitative interviews with 40 fast food workers. Most fast food workers eat fast food when they are at work but their consumption patterns and choices reflect familial, cultural and class-based eating patterns and learning in adult social relationships (e.g., eating practices with friends). Some engage in a deliberate (conscious) process in their eating habits. The findings suggest that structure, disposition and conscious thought may influence food consumption.

Keywords

Bourdieu consumption fast food work food choices habitus

Introduction

Dramatic shifts in eating practices have occurred over the past 60 years. For example, prior to the economic boom of the 1950s in the USA, the home was the primary site of food preparation and consumption. Changes in work and family life, availability of convenience food and rapid transportation led to escalations in fast food consumption (Halberstam, 1993). This trend influenced scientific exploration of fast food consumption (Oliver, 2006) and led to several explanations for fast food consumption practices. Some argue that health behaviours are socially determined (Link and Phelan, 1995), largely influenced by socioeconomic status (Dramon and Drewnowski, 2008; Kant and Graubard, 2013) such that people with lower socioeconomic status will be more likely to consume fast food. Others argue that there is an association between physical proximity to fast food outlets and fast food consumption (Davis and Carpenter, 2009; Delormier et al., 2009; White, 2007).

The majority of research on fast food employment focuses on work conditions and labour relations (Gould, 2010, 2013; Leidner, 1993; Reiter, 1991, 2002; Ritzer, 2008; Royle, 2010; Woodhall and Muszynski, 2011). Moreover, there is a large body of research that explores food consumption and customers of fast food establishments (Fleischhacker et al., 2011; French, 2003; Glanz et al., 1998; Paeratakul et al., 2003), but the authors are aware of only one study (Mulvaney-Day et al., 2012) that explored work-based food choices among people (in this case white students) who were employed in the fast food industry. These authors found that a variety of external (e.g. cost and time) and internal factors (e.g. practices of controlling personal intake) contributed to the students’ inability to make healthy choices (Mulvaney-Day et al., 2012). They briefly noted that family influences knowledge of food ingredients and preparation; however, they did not describe the complex relationship between family food practices and future food choices of children. They also did not thoroughly address other social influences (e.g. school, classmates and room mates) that may affect food choices. This leaves a considerable gap in our knowledge on fast food workers and fast food consumption.

Fast food and fast food workers

Fast food work is frequently used to describe labour performed at a variety of food establishments. Despite variations in the products provided at these ‘restaurants’, the work is defined by the presence of several defining characteristics: the performance of routinized, highly controlled steps in service and food preparation with a strong focus on time and cost efficiency; and employment of unskilled workers who typically receive low wages (Leidner, 1993; Reiter, 1991; Ritzer, 2008; Royle and Towers, 2002; Woodhall and Muszynski, 2011). These workplaces often follow standardized procedures prescribed by franchising bodies who determine the most efficient procedures to provide customers with identical products at the lowest cost possible (Leidner, 1993; Reiter, 1991). For the purposes of this article, the authors like others (Reiter, 2002; Ritzer, 2008), define fast food through labour practices rather than the food served. In other words, fast food refers to establishments that provide quick, relatively cheap and standardized service and food products to customers.

Fast food work is commonly critiqued for being alienating, rationalized, routinized, standardized and unskilled (Leidner, 1993; Reiter, 1991, 2002; Ritzer, 2008; Royle and Towers, 2002; Woodhall and Muszynski, 2011). Workers follow rigid protocols and procedures, unconducive to exercising creativity in the work process (Leidner, 1993; Reiter, 1991; Ritzer, 2008; Woodhall and Muszynski, 2011). However, Gould (2010) argues that the nature of fast food work is more complex than simply labelling it as good or bad work. He found that the organization of labour is highly routinized, but younger workers appeared to be less bothered by this than older workers. Younger workers were also more likely to express higher levels of contentment with their work. He also found that those with lower education had higher job satisfaction than those with higher education (Gould, 2010).

Previous studies on fast food work define class using a Marxist lens with class determined by a worker’s relationship to the means of production (Leidner, 1993; Reiter, 1991). For example, in Reiter’s (1991) study of employees of Burger King, she argues that the sole purpose of workers is to accumulate capital for ownership while being subjected to just-in-time staffing principles and routinized labour. More recently, debates on the class and social location of service workers in general have emerged. Hansen and Leuty (2012) argue that the interaction between service workers and customers is illustrative of the class-based inequality experienced. In this sense, those who serve are afforded lesser status than those who consume services. This suggests that service workers experience inequality because of the nature of their work.

Research has shown that the regular consumption of fast food is associated with poor health outcomes such as being overweight or obese (Rosenheck, 2008). Such research commonly focuses on fast food consumption patterns and habits within the general population (Fleischhacker et al., 2011; French, 2003; Glanz et al., 1998; Paeratakul et al., 2003), but little is known about the actual food choices of those who are frequently exposed to this food, the fast food workers themselves. Although not specific to fast food work, two studies investigate the association between North American food service industry work and Body Mass Index (BMI) among its employees. Woodhall-Melnik et al. (2015) find that Canadian food service workers (food and beverage servers, food counter attendants, kitchen helpers and related occupations, and food service supervisors) are less likely to have above normal BMIs than their peers in the general Canadian population. Similarly, Pizam (2013) finds a lower prevalence of BMI in the overweight or obese range among American food service workers than peers in the general American working population.

Consumption, capital and taste

A wide variety of factors affect food consumption choices, including the physical environment and access to different types of food sources (Lake and Townshend, 2006; Popkin et al., 2005), public and legal policy (Popkin et al., 2005), socioeconomic status and education (Drewnowski and Specter, 2004), gender (Wardle et al., 2004), sensory cues and emotional state (Gibson, 2006), stress (Torres and Nowson, 2007), personal values (Aertsens et al., 2009) and parental influences and behaviour modelling (Brown and Ogden, 2004). Until recently, consumption was considered to be too inconsequential to study on its own (Slater, 2005). Rather, classical social theorists present consumption as a social and cultural product that arose out of life in a capitalist society (Slater, 2005). Protégés of these classical scholars give attention to the central role consumption plays in forming identities and lifestyles. For example, neo-Marxist scholars Adorno and Horkheimer (2011) argue that the human imagination is commoditized under capitalism. Similarly, Lukacs (1971) articulates the importance of conditions of capitalism in promoting consumption as a dominant force in society.

Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction (1984) views consumption as an embodiment of class. Capital (social, political, cultural and economic) is a powerful mechanism leveraged in social interactions and its possession is visible in daily activities and routine consumption of goods (Julien, 2015; Wacquant, 2013). In Distinction, Bourdieu (1986) outlines a framework of classed consumption that is used by others to explain variations in eating patterns (Backett-Milburn et al., 2010; Jastran et al., 2009; Pettinger, 2005; Warin et al., 2008). This use is primarily based on Bourdieu’s (1986) claim that taste in consumables, actions, practices and social traits are indicative of membership in a social class. He writes:

The fact that in the realm of food the main opposition broadly corresponds to differences in income has masked the secondary opposition which exists, both within the middle classes and within the dominant class, between the fractions richer in cultural capital and less rich in economic capital and those whose assets are structured in the opposite way. Observers tend to see a simple effect of income in the fact that, as one rises in the social hierarchy, the proportion spent on food diminishes, or that within the food budget, the proportion spent on heavy, fatty, fattening foods, which are also cheap […] declines […] Because the real principle of preference is taste, a virtue made of necessity, the theory which makes consumption a simple function of income has all of the appearances to support it. However, it cannot account for cases in which the same income is associated with totally different consumption patterns […] one has to take account of all of the characteristics of social conditions which are (statistically) associated from earliest childhood with possession of high or low income and which tend to shape tastes adjusted to these conditions. (p. 177)

From childhood, access and exposure to capital shapes actions, preferences and dispositions, cumulatively referred to as habitus. Habitus is not a stagnant collection of dispositions. In fact, over time an individual can form multiple habiti (Bourdieu, 2005; Wacquant, 2013). The primary habitus is formed through exposure to familial culture whereas secondary and tertiary habiti are comprised of ‘transposable schema that become grafted subsequently through specialized pedagogical labour’ (Wacquant, 2013: 7). Although unconscious, habitus is derived from life experiences, subsequently embodied in consumption or taste (Bourdieu, 2005; Wacquant, 2013).

Habitus is frequently employed to describe the relationship between everyday eating practices, class, social location and access to capital (Backett-Milburn et al., 2010; Johnston et al., 2012; Martens, 1997; Warin et al., 2008; Wills et al., 2011). For example, in investigating practices of ethical eating (i.e. making local or organic food choices), Johnston et al. (2012) find that choices are heavily shaped by social class and neighbourhood culture. People who reside in wealthy neighbourhoods with access to ethical food sources and exposure to associated value systems are more likely to state that ethical eating was an important consideration in their food choices relative to people living in lower-class neighbourhoods. Food choices and more general consumption practices are also shaped by habitus and the workplace (Backett-Milburn et al., 2010; Halpern and Leite, 2011; Jastran et al., 2009; Pettinger, 2005; Warin et al., 2008). In food service work, Backett-Milburn et al. (2010) argue that gender and class dispositions impact upon women working in the industry as they strive to present themselves as workers, mothers and family members despite their limited access to material resources.

Bourdieu has focused on culturally based consumption as a representation of class differences and arguably his work represents the first systematic sociological examination of taste (Wacquant, 2013). The concept of consumption is integral to the understanding of social location. It illuminates social position wherein good or pure taste is indicative of power and consumption of necessities denotes a lack of power or capital to choose finer items (Susen, 2011; Wattanasuwan, 2005). In a recent study of museum visitors, Hanquinet et al. (2014) find that Bourdieu’s framework continues to prove useful in understanding taste or aesthetics; however, cultural shifts and consumption trends warrant the need to update considerations of the relationship between taste, culture and dispositions. The impact of capital and culture on consumption presents interesting possibilities when considering the field of fast food work, as the available literature suggests that fast food workers are not a homogeneous group and do not necessarily share similar class locations (Gould, 2010). Therefore, employing Bourdieu’s lens would suggest that taste in consumables may vary among workers, as they have the propensity to occupy different class locations.

Critics argue that habitus fails to address capacity to act with meaning and does not allow for the creativity necessary for improvisation in today’s fast paced world (Adkins, 2003; Archer, 2010; Crossley, 2001; Decoteau, 2015). Bourdieu claims that although individuals appear to make conscious choices in times of conflict, these choices are still informed by habitus (Wacquant, 1989). Change, according to Bourdieu, is produced through reflexive action garnered through expert reflection or structural crises (Decoteau, 2015). This is problematic as it assumes a human nature characterized by complacency when fields are not in crisis or when one does not engage in deep, scholarly self-reflection.

Attempts have been made to bring elements of human innovation to Bourdieu’s concept of habitus. Archer (2010) argues that an a-social self (innate disposition) is a precursor to the social self which informs identity through social interaction while accounting for the embodied past self, the present self and the future self. Decoteau (2015) draws on Wacquant’s (2013) discussion of primary and secondary habitus to argue that actors occupy multiple, often overlapping, fields. As occupants of multiple, intersecting fields, actors are able to assume the logic of one field and apply it to another, potentially accomplishing the detachment needed for reflexive thought leading to purposeful action (Decoteau, 2015). This extends Bourdieu’s framework to allow for a clear way to understand the role of conscious thought or decision making in food choices. The aim of this article is to examine the food choices of fast food workers. In doing so, the authors employ Bourdieu’s framework as an analytical tool to explain workers’ motivations for consuming various foods.

Methods

In this qualitative study, 40 fast food workers living in South Western Ontario were interviewed between September 2011 and March 2013. The average age was 20.4 years, ranging from 18 to 25 years. The majority (75%) of the sample was female which is reflective of the feminized nature of this workforce (Reiter, 2002). The participants were currently (N=32) or had within the past year (N=8) worked at a variety of fast food locations. Of the 40, 11 worked for McDonald’s, 10 for Tim Horton’s, four for Burger King, three for Harvey’s, two each were from Subway, Pizza Hut and Pita Pit, and one each were from Coffee Time, Starbucks, Second Cup, Coffee Culture, Williams and a small local café. Of the 40 participants, 32 were enrolled in part- or full-time post-secondary education, and those interviewed worked a diverse number of hours, ranging from five to 65 hours per week. The sample was fairly racially diverse: seven workers were Middle Eastern, five were Asian, two were Black, one was Aboriginal and 25 workers were White. In addition to discussing food choices, each participant was asked his or her self-perception of weight. 21 participants self-identified as average weight, 12 as overweight and seven as underweight. Each participant was asked to provide self-reports of childhood and current social classes. This allowed the participants to locate themselves within the classes with which they most closely identified.

This study used a three-pronged recruitment approach to locate participants in South Western Ontario. First, mass emails were sent to undergraduate university students (N=24). Second, the lead author used Facebook as a gatekeeper to locate potential study participants (N=6). The lead author typed the names of common large fast food chains (e.g. McDonalds, Subway) into Facebook’s search bar (this approach was viable because individuals can list the name of their employer on their Facebook profiles). Those identified as fast food employees through Facebook were sent a recruitment message and information letter. Third, the lead author used a snowball approach and gave participants and acquaintances copies of the information letter (with study contact information) and asked that they pass this along to coworkers and potential contacts working in fast food (N=10).

Each respondent was asked to participate in one semi-structured interview. Interviews ranged from 30 to 90 minutes long and were conducted in locations that were convenient for the participants. Workers were asked questions about their food consumption as children (Growing up, what were some of your favourite foods?), and as adults both inside the workplace (What food do you eat while you are at work?) and outside (What food do you eat at home?). They were also asked about their views on food and nutrition (In your circle of family and friends, who would you consider to be a healthy eater and why?), and for information surrounding their perceptions of their lifestyles and health status (What do you do in your spare time?). 40 interviews were conducted and audio recorded; 15 of these interviews were transcribed verbatim by a transcription service after the interviews were complete. For the remaining 25, the interviewer took detailed notes while conducting the interview and verified the data using the audio recordings. NVivo was used to organize all transcripts and notes. Each participant received $15 as remuneration. The study was approved by the research ethics board at the University of Waterloo. In this article participant names have been replaced with pseudonyms.

The analysis involved three coding phases: open, axial and selective (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). This process began with reading through each transcript to identify words and ideas that frequently appeared. Each interview was then re-read to analyse the ideas and words within their context. Words and ideas were then grouped into nodes based on their similarities. These nodes were analysed using Bourdieu’s theoretical lens to develop themes. Specific attention was paid to the role of cultural exposure, through the workplace and other environments, such as school and the familial household, in forming food choice patterns. Additionally, emphasis was placed on structural constraints and expressions of individual agency, power and access to resources, consumption patterns within and outside the workplace, and the meaning that workers ascribed to their work. Data were then compiled into five theoretically driven themes (the fast food workplace, eating and food in the workplace, regulation of food consumption, cultural transmission of eating practices and views of work), under which more specific nodes were formed. The final analysis stage involved coding all the transcripts and notes in NVivo using both the general themes and more specific sub-nodes. This article presents data from themes about eating and food in the workplace, workers’ regulation of their food consumption and cultural transmission of eating practices.

Findings

Structural constraints and food consumption

Fast food workers experienced structural constraints that influenced their food consumption at work. These constraints included limited time to prepare food, multiple life demands (e.g. managing work and other life responsibilities), the convenience of eating food at work and economic constraints. For example, John described the economic benefits of consuming food at work:

We get 50% off of our food anytime, you get a platinum card and you get it off at any time at any McDonald’s. It’s the only reason I still work there.

All of the workers in this study received discounted or free food from their workplaces. These incentives provided an enticement for these workers to purchase inexpensive foods at work.

In addition to cost savings, workers talked about the convenience of eating at work. They had demanding schedules juggling school and shift work which meant being away from home for numerous meals. Suzie said:

For me while I am working, I get free food and if I’m not working it’s 50% off. I used to bring food from home but not any more, it is too much time to do it, I am really lazy to do it. My really early shifts will be too early or evening shifts I am coming from school.

Paul described the ease of eating at work given his busy schedule and economic constraints:

[I]t’s […] not that I eat it because I like it. I just eat [it] because I’m so busy. I don’t know if you would call it, like, easy […] I eat a lot of McDonald’s, but I don’t like it. But it’s so easy and I have a little bit of money, and it’s so cheap and I get 50% off.

For many workers, easy access to relatively cheap fast food was a solution to the time and economic constraints they experienced in their daily lives.

The formed habitus: food consumption as unconsciously driven

Participants’ reflections on their childhoods suggest that habitus, as learned dispositions, unconsciously influenced their food choices. Participants who were raised in middle- and upper-class homes perceived that they made healthier food choices. These students and workers were not solely reliant on fast food work as a source of income; they received additional financial support from parents, education savings plans and student loans. Often they worked part-time and made food choices based on familial food practices. For example, when asked about what she ate during childhood, Carol stated:

Part of that time I was a vegetarian, my mom had health issues so she cut out meat, sugar and dairy. For most of my childhood I didn’t have those things. I would steal salami from a girls’ house down the street. When I got older my parents let me eat meat and I wasn’t a big fan of it because I wasn’t used to it. I was a very healthy child. I ate veggies, tofu, beans, salad. I drank a lot of water, Rice Dream [rice milk] and a fair bit of juice. My go-to was always water. I did not have pop until I went to camp in grade seven, and I was violently ill after drinking it. They gave me [pop] and it tasted so bad. Still, I have no pop today. We would get delivery [food] but it was from a vegetarian restaurant, very healthy take out.

When asked about her eating habits as an adult, Carol said:

Right now I live with my boyfriend and we sit down for every meal. It is mandatory unless he is at work. He has to sit down with me for every meal. I do not eat at school. I like to eat in my kitchen where I have all of my food. I like to eat everything from scratch. We eat Vietnamese takeout and that’s it. For the most part I don’t eat meat now. Once every six months I go to Swiss Chalet and just get a salad. I do all of the cooking.

Carol’s description of her current eating patterns aligned with those in her early familial home. She did not consciously articulate why she continued to follow practices similar to those she learned as a child, rather she described how she liked to eat – e.g. in her kitchen.

Robyn was raised in a lone parent household where her mother experienced multiple economic and time constraints. The foods Robyn ate growing up required little preparation and were highly processed. As a child she ate fast food on a regular basis. Her exposure to such foods early in life may have contributed to her taste for processed foods. Here is how she describes her food choices at work:

We could play with [the food]. Instead of making your standard, sometimes we’d make mozza sticks, or we’d use the little dipping sauces for our burgers, stuff like that. We could make it the way we wanted it to be, or tell people to do it the way we wanted it to be. I made French fry salad one day because I was pregnant and I was bored.

Robyn grew up eating processed and fast foods. As an adult, she did not put a lot of thought into the health content of the food she ate.

Maxwell grew up in a middle class home. His mother provided him with home cooked meals. He described his food preferences as a child:

[Mom] would always say – when I was a little kid if she had a pickle in one hand and a cookie in the other I would always take the pickle because I enjoyed the flavor of it more. [We did eat out], yes, but not very often. It was a very special treat for us [at sit down restaurants…] The only time I remember going for fast food was generally surrounding sporting. So, if I had a hockey game, I would go with my dad.

Maxwell went on to describe his current eating practices stating that he occasionally ate at work when his school schedule was hectic but he preferred to cook at home.

Food for thought; conscious decision making

Some of the study participants appeared to exercise reflexivity in their choice of foods. This involves the use of conscious thought in determining actions or in making consumption choices, rather than being unconsciously guided by one’s tastes or dispositions toward specific foods. These workers clearly articulated the rationale behind their choices. For example, Sam stated:

I try to stay away from the dark meats. I usually eat the chicken and the – yeah just the chicken. After a while – like after a year I started to stay away from the dark meats. They are so good, they are so tasty.

Sam was very concerned with the health content of food. Although she described the ‘dark’ meats available at work as ‘so tasty’, she reflected on her food choices, selecting those she perceived to be healthier.

A quote from Dora, a McDonald’s worker, illustrates conscious reflection on her food choices:

Um – well I try to – not eat while I’m there – I bring my own lunch, or if I buy food, a muffin. So I try to stay away from all the other food – ’cause it’s really not healthy.

Dora was concerned about the health content of the products she chose to consume. However, she did perceive muffins, although high in sugars, fats and calories, as a healthier option, indicating conscious reflection.

Jamie, a part-time worker at Harvey’s, described the rationale she used to make food choices at work:

Well, just the calorie content in the burgers is ridiculous. Yeah – well I only eat the veggies in there anyway […] when I first started it was all like burgers and then I went to chicken and then I went to veggie burgers. It will be a veggie burger on a whole wheat bun with cheese and then a bottle of water.

Over time, Jamie decided that veggie burgers were the healthiest option. She, like Dora and Sam, consciously considered the health content of the foods she chose. Despite sometimes choosing to eat fast food, some of the workers took time to consciously reflect on why they made certain food consumption choices.

Impact of cultural exposure on food choices: the case of immigration

Some of the participants interviewed were immigrants to Canada. Their food experiences in the familial environment continued to play a role in adult food consumption choices. However, these workers’ food choices also included westernized foods. Joyce said:

[I am] from Congo. [We eat] a lot of oil, and organic vegetables, beans and spinach, originally they are healthy and then we add a lot of oil. But because my family’s income in Africa is really well-off we ate westernized pasta, bread, a lot of French fries. I moved to Canada 12 years ago with my whole family […] At home with my parents I eat poorly because African food is oily. My parents let me eat western food, but usually it is spaghetti and cheese. Here on campus, I eat really healthy because I live with really health conscious people.

Joyce ate ‘oily’ traditional foods when she visited home. In her adult life, she developed an affinity for healthier items. Joyce was exposed to new cultural eating practices (norms) through her room-mates. For her this was a meaningful experience that helped her develop healthier eating habits.

Albert also immigrated to Canada at a young age. During his interview, he disclosed that he ate a lot of fast food at work. He also described his eating practices in Bangladesh, noting that people often avoided fast food:

I used to eat mostly at home because come from Bangladesh and people get flus and food poisoning from [eating out], so we wouldn’t go to restaurants, but when we did go out we went to five-star hotels. I left when I was 11, with my parents, and [their] two twins. My Mom cooked, she used to cook Indian food, Bengali mix, curries and rice, occasionally Chinese and Italian. Mom’s a good cook. In Canada I eat out about three times a week. It was less when I was still with Mom. Here [at school] I have been having outside food quite a lot. I live on my own right now in off-campus housing, I go back to Toronto during weekends […] I bring food from Toronto and I microwave. Mom makes it, I microwave it.

As an adult, Albert made his food choices based on convenience. He continued to eat his mother’s home-made Bengali food, but he also consumed food at work and other convenience foods at home, illustrating a continuation of traditional eating practices combined with a newer affinity for westernized fast food.

Katie’s eating practices also stemmed from both her cultural knowledge learned in youth and from her exposure to westernized culture and fast food work:

I ate a lot of rice and curry at home. As a child I never had fast food, so just rice and curry were my favorite. My parents wouldn’t take me [to fast food restaurants] I am from Bangladesh […] Everyone ate meals together at the kitchen table […] twice a day. My mom prepared it […] I live with my parents now […] It is a really busy house […] I eat with whoever is home and whoever’s schedules fit, but we prefer to eat together. I still eat pretty much the same foods: curry, rice and vegetables […] I don’t eat any of the meat [at McDonald’s] so usually a salad, juice and sometimes fries, I go on and off the fries, I am trying not to have fries and pop.

Katie ate fast food at work, but she followed halal practices which prohibited her from eating the meat-based dishes at McDonald’s. She was raised to view eating as a familial practice and continued to prefer eating home cooked meals with her family as an adult. At the same time, Katie also developed a taste for the products she could eat at work like the fries and pop.

Discussion and conclusion

The purpose of this study is to examine the factors affecting food consumption patterns of fast food workers. All the workers in this study consume some fast food at work. Workers’ food consumption patterns are influenced by a variety of factors. First, structural considerations, such as time, work hours and the cost of food have an impact on food choices. Workers’ discounted access to fast food, ability to avoid meal preparation and busy schedules prompt fast food consumption at work. Second, primary habitus seems to guide workers’ choices. Those who ate fast or convenience foods in their familial homes describe enjoying and eating fast food as adult workers. Lastly, there was a segment of workers who put a lot of thought into what products they would consume while they were at work. Generally speaking, these individuals want to make choices that they perceive to be healthier. In other words, they put thought into the health content of the food products they choose to consume. The question of whether there is a greater influence of family or fast food culture seems to be complicated by structural constraints on workers (e.g. busy schedules), incentives to eat food at work (discounted food) and habitus formed through familial and cultural exposure.

The authors found that Bourdieu’s (1984) framework is useful in understanding workers’ food consumption. Low cost, employee discounts and easy access to food make fast food an attractive choice for consumption for workers; yet, primary habitus appears to also guide food choices. Our findings support Bourdieu’s (1984) and Backett-Milburn et al.’s (2010) conclusions that access to capital, the family and other meaningful life experiences (e.g. school, living with room-mates, etc.), provide individuals with exposure to different capital that forms habitus and dictates taste for consumables. Our work also aligns with Mulvaney-Day et al.’s (2012) finding that internal and external factors impact workers’ food choices and consumption.

The workers in this study experience structural constraints that affect their food choices including lack of time to pre-prepare healthy lunches for consumption at work, shift work, busy school schedules that leave little time to eat and discounts that allow them to purchase food cheaply at work. This suggests that proximity, convenience and cost play a role in food choice. These findings align with those from studies on consumer behaviour (Davis and Carpenter, 2009; Delormier et al., 2009; Drewnowski and Spencer, Lake and Townshend, 2006; Popkin et al., 2005; White, 2007). The findings also mirror those of studies of workers in other industries (e.g., retail) where the workplace plays a powerful role in shaping consumption patterns (Pettinger, 2005). In addition, workers’ cultural and class-based knowledge, which formed habitus, works in tandem with these structural constraints to inform the selections workers made. Although fast food workers are generally poorly compensated (Reiter, 2002) and occupy lower positions in occupational hierarchies (Simpson et al., 2014), many embodied cultural knowledge on food preparation and consumption they learned through their families in their adult food selections.

Although structure and embodied habitus provides an explanation for some of the workers’ unconscious consumption practices, they are unable to account for the conscious thought surrounding food choices that some workers express. To understand the finding that some workers engage in conscious decision making in their food consumption practices, scholars need to move beyond Bourdieu’s traditional presentation of habitus (Archer, 2010; Crossley, 2001; Decoteau, 2015). Decoteau (2015), for example, argues that actors are able to purposively employ logic from one field to another, providing a possible explanation for workers’ awareness of choices. This could mean that workers’ location between the fields of home and work allows them to use logic surrounding home-based food consumption to consciously deliberate workplace food consumption.

Exposure to the fast food workplace prompts food consumption; however, workers’ preferences for certain types of foods do not appear to change. These preferences often mirror familial eating habits, suggesting the importance of primary habitus. Employing Wacquant’s (2013) articulation of multiple habiti leads to the argument that the fast food field is secondary for these workers and they rely on taste dispositions from the primary habitus. Additionally, as these workers are involved in other social arenas (e.g. family, school, social clubs) it is possible that they are not engrained enough in the field of fast food work to experience a change in habitus. Bourdieu (2005) notes that habitus is durable but not completely stagnant. Perhaps workers did not experience the level of engagement in the field needed to cultivate a change in habitus.

The original intent of this study was to understand food choices of fast food workers in general; however, as Mulvaney-Day et al.’s (2012) sample is comprised of white students, there is a gap in understanding the motivations of non-white fast food workers. Ten per cent of the present study respondents immigrated to Canada from other countries during childhood or early youth. Bourdieu’s framework is employed to explain the dispositions and actions of immigrants (Erel, 2010; Nobel, 2013), as it allows for the investigation of the relationship between capital and changing social paths (Erel, 2010). Those who use Bourdieu to understand immigration argue that immigrants often attempt to alter their cultural capital, and consequently their dispositions, to fit in with the dominant culture of their new country (Erel, 2010; Kelly and Lusis, 2006; Nobel, 2013). Immigrants do learn a new set of dispositions; however, they often do not become as ingrained as in the new countries those who were born in the country (Kelly and Lusis, 2006; Nobel, 2013; O’Reilly, 2012). A signifier of a well-formed habitus is embodiment of internalized social norms and values (Kelly and Lusis, 2006). Similar to others (Erel, 2010; Kelly and Lusis, 2006; Nobel, 2013), the authors find that the workers who are immigrants to Canada embody traditional and new dispositions to food, suggesting an influence of logic from their original countries, current homes and the workplace. This is in line with Wacquant’s (2013) discussion of primary and secondary habitus. One could theorize that primary habitus is derived from familial experiences which are rooted in the culture of the workers’ countries of origin. Arrival to Canada could result in formation of a secondary habitus that emulates characteristics from the primary habitus but is indicative of meaningful immersion in a new culture. Additionally, using Decouteau’s (2015) logic could suggest that the workers who immigrate to Canada occupy more than one intersecting social field. This could explain why workers continue to eat the traditional foods from their countries in tandem with Canadian foods. Additionally, this may provide a useful explanation for those who follow traditional eating practices at home and at work.

Our study is unique in using Bourdieu’s (1986) concept of habitus to explore food consumption practices among fast food workers. The use of Wacquant’s (2013) and Decoteau’s (2015) extensions of Bourdieu’s (1986) original framework provide useful avenues through which to view the exercise of conscious thought in food choices. The authors argue that the continued exploration, development and testing of concepts that can strongly tie reflexive thought with the concept of habitus is useful for the sociological study of food consumption.

There are several study limitations. The sample is largely comprised of undergraduate university students and frequent Facebook users, a younger demographic. However, the fast food industry employs a fairly young demographic, with a mean age of 30 (Woodhall-Melnik et al., 2015). This suggests that the authors’ recruitment strategy targets the appropriate demographic, yet the food industry also employs older adults. As such, future studies might examine how food choices differ among older and younger workers in this industry. In the present study workers are from a variety of fast food establishments and nutritional content of foods may differ. This study, however, is designed to elicit the workers’ own perceptions of their food choices as healthy or not. Ritzer (2008) argues that public perceptions of health differences among various types of fast food often stem from complex marketing campaigns. Future studies could more narrowly conceptualize fast food to include only restaurants that sell similar categories of products (i.e. hamburgers and fries). However, as major chains continue to diversify their product selections (for example, the creation of the McDonald’s McCafé) differentiating between types of fast food may become more difficult.

Future research should focus on the roles of both the fast food workplace and family culture in promoting workers’ consumption of certain types of products. Additionally, research that more narrowly conceptualizes fast food may be important to understanding the impacts of different types of fast food on workers’ consumption. Future studies should quantify workers’ food choices to allow for a generalizable understanding of consumption patterns.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge and thank Dr. Woodhall-Melnik’s Ph.D. supervisory committee for their assistance with framing and advising the research presented above. We express our sincere gratitude to: Dr. Alicja Muszynski, Retired Faculty, Sociology and Legal Studies, University of Waterloo; Dr. Martin Cooke, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Legal Studies, School of Public Health and Health Systems, University of Waterloo; Dr. Philip Bigelow, Associate Professor, School of Public Health and Health Systems, University of Waterloo, Adjunct Faculty at the Institute for Work and Health and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.

Funding

At the time of data collection and analysis, Dr. Woodhall-Melnik was funded by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program. Preparation of this manuscript was made possible by awards from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Post-Doctoral Fellowship program and the ACHIEVE Post-Doctoral Fellowship, a Strategic Training Initiative in Health Research with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Julia Woodhall-Melnik Ph.D. is a sociologist who explores social inequality as a social determinant of health. Her Ph.D. work focuses on the health consequences of participation in low-waged work and her current research is on housing instability and homelessness as social determinants of health. Dr Woodhall-Melnik is a CIHR Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Health, Aging, and Society at McMaster University and is a Research Visitor at the Centre for Research on Inner City Health, St. Michael’s Hospital.

Flora I Matheson Ph.D. is a medial sociologist who explores gender inequities in health among people experiencing complex health and social needs that span problem gambling and substance use, mental illness, poverty, housing instability and imprisonment. She is a Scientist at the Centre for Research on Inner City Health, St. Michael’s Hospital and with the Mental Health and Addictions Program at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences; as well as an Assistant Professor with the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto.

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