Research report Eating practices and habitus in mothers. A Brazilian population-based survey ☆ Priscila de Morais Sato a, *, Patrícia da Rocha Pereira a , Isis de Carvalho Stelmo a , Ramiro Fernandez Unsain b , Mariana Dimitrov Ulian a , Fernanda Sabatini a , Paula Andrea Martins c , Fernanda Baeza Scagliusi d a Department of Health, Clinics and Institutions, Institute of Health and Society, Federal University of São Paulo, Campus Baixada Santista, Rua Silva Jardim, 136 – Santos/SP – CEP: 11015-020, Santos/SP, Brazil b Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Cátedra de Antropologia, Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, Calle Puán, 480. CP: C1406CQJ, Capital Federal/Buenos Aires, Argentina c Department of Sciences of Human Movement, Institute of Health and Society, Federal University of São Paulo, Campus Baixada Santista, Rua Silva Jardim, 136 – Santos/SP – CEP: 11015-020, Santos/SP, Brazil d Department of Nutrition, School of Public Health, University of São Paulo, Av. Dr. Arnaldo, 715 – São Paulo/SP – CEP 01255-000, São Paulo/SP, Brazil A R T I C L E I N FO Article history: Received 31 March 2014 Received in revised form 1 July 2014 Accepted 2 July 2014 Available online 8 July 2014 Keywords: Eating practices Habitus Bourdieu Mothers Brazil A B ST R AC T A population-based cross-sectional study was conducted with mothers living in the city of Santos, Brazil, in order to investigate their eating practices, and the interface between those practices and the concept of habitus. From a cluster analysis of the scores for dietary pattern and for food preparation and con- sumption, the mothers were categorised into five clusters of eating practices: practical mothers (19.8%), symbiotic mothers (3.2%), health-conscious hedonists (17.3%), traditionalists (34.6%), and family cooks (25.1%). To access the habitus of the eating-practice clusters, the following variables were compared: lo- cation of residence, profession, socioeconomic status, weight-loss practices, risk behaviours for eating disorders, disordered eating attitudes, body dissatisfaction, and cultural and technological consump- tion. For all the groups, the observed eating practices were permeated by responsibility for the family’s diet, but with different manifestations. For symbiotic mothers, practical mothers, and family cooks, the primary function of their relation with food was to nourish their families, with little expression of their own tastes and preferences. The traditionalists and the health-conscious hedonists, on the other hand, manifested their role as mothers by providing food considered ‘nutritionally proper’ to their family members. Furthermore, aspects of contemporary lifestyles, such as little time for food, individualisation of meals, and consumption of processed foods, were found to coexist with the valorisation and maintenance of the traditional meals within some groups. The variety of eating practices could not be understood as a linear association between economic and cultural capitals; however, eating practices seemed to interact with those capitals, composing a habitus. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Food consumption and the rituals and values around it have changed as contemporary societies have developed and become more globalised and individualised (Solér & Plazas, 2012). In Brazil, eating modifications have been related to important social changes, such as an increase of the middle class, improvements in women’s ed- ucation, urbanisation, and an increase in the number of women entering the labour market (Victora et al., 2011). One of the most important changes in Brazilians’ food consumption has been the re- duction in consumption of traditional items, such as rice and beans, and the increase in consumption of ultra-processed food items (Levy et al., 2010). Research into food and culture is often interested in the relationship between traditional food and convenience food in Western eating practices. Moreover, research in this area investi- gates how practices around food have changed in response to the sociocultural movements that shape society and its practices (Solér & Plazas, 2012). The concept of eating practices is an important tool in the in- vestigation of eating modifications and its associated factors (Hunt, Fazio, McKenzie, & Moloney, 2011). Poulain and Proença (2003) define eating practices as a set of objective and subjective data that enables description and understanding of the food phenomena. This ☆ Acknowledgements: This study was supported by FAPESP (processes 2010/ 04255-5 and 2009/01361-1) and CNPq (processes 501275/2009-6, 478212/2009-7 and 309121/2012-4). * Corresponding author. E-mail address: pri.sato@gmail.com (P. de Morais Sato). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2014.07.002 0195-6663/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Appetite 82 (2014) 16–28 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Appetite journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/appet