The post-war Japanese eating model

A sociological exploration of semi-compressed food modernity

Bibliographic Data

ID11496047
AuthorsHaruka Ueda (0000-0002-1311-0298, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, The University of Tokyo, Japan, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume39
Issue4
Pages462-485
Publication date2024-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0268-5809 • E-ISSN: 1461-7242
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/02685809241253239
OpenAlexW4398168753
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited25

Among multiple factors that can influence people’s food security, the gender inequality factor has attracted inadequate attention in high-income countries, particularly in Japan. To analyse how and why gender inequality issue has been neglected in food policy in Japan, I propose the notion of the ‘post-war Japanese eating model’ based on the sociologies of family and food. I demonstrate how Japanese society has persisted with this eating model by examining two dominant dietary discourses, the Japanese dietary pattern and Hōshoku (deterioration of dietary practices). The former reinforced the post-war Japanese eating model, despite the prevailing agricultural and nutritional accounts. Regarding the latter discourse, Hōshoku was overestimated, resulting in enlarging the contradiction between norms (the Japanese dietary pattern) and practices. Given the increasing difficulty in performing such practice, their dietary norms need to be reconstructed through awareness of reflexive or ‘semi-compressed’ food modernity facing Japan

Epistemology · Modernity · Social science · Sociological imagination · Sociological theory · Sociology · Anthropology · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Gender Studies · Japanese History and Culture · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Philosophy

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