Research review The use of Pierre Bourdieu's distinction concepts in scientific articles studying food and eating: A narrative review P.M. Sato a, * , Joel Gittelsohn b , Ramiro Fernandez Unsain c , Odilon Jos  e Roble d , Fernanda Baeza Scagliusi e a Department of Health, Clinics and Institutions, Institute of Health and Society, Federal University of S~ ao Paulo, Campus Baixada Santista, Rua Silva Jardim, 136, CEP 11015-020, Santos, SP, Brazil b Center for Human Nutrition and Global Obesity Prevention Center, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N. Wolfe Street, Room W2041A, Baltimore, MD 21205-2179, USA c Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, C atedra de Antropologia, Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, Calle Pu an, 480, CP: C1406CQJ, Capital Federal, Buenos Aires, Argentina d Department of Physical Education and Humanities, School of Physical Education, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Cidade Universit aria Zeferino Vaz Bar~ ao Geraldo, 13083-970, Campinas, SP, Brazil e Department of Nutrition, School of Public Health, University of S~ ao Paulo, Av. Dr. Arnaldo, 715, CEP 01255-000, S~ ao Paulo, SP, Brazil article info Article history: Received 2 September 2014 Received in revised form 2 May 2015 Accepted 9 September 2015 Available online 12 September 2015 Keywords: Bourdieu Distinction Eating practice Narrative review Food Habitus abstract This article reviews and discusses scientific papers on eating practices that have used Pierre Bourdieu's concepts presented in Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. It aims to synthesize and analyze theoretical and empirical studies on the theme in order to present Bourdieu's contributions to the field, advances in his theories, and directions for future research. Exclusion criteria were: not written in Portuguese, English, Spanish, or French; not published in a peer-reviewed journal; not analyzing food or eating; and not using Bourdieu's concepts as presented in Distinction as the main theoretical frame- work. In this narrative review, we found 38 articles, which were categorized main themes: food choice and provisioning, taste, social class, food symbolism, the body, and the scientific field of food and eating. The taste of luxury and the taste of necessity were broadly applied on the works found in this review and were observed among the lower and upper classes, manifesting differently in each class. These studies show that while Bourdieu's theories are still highly relevant to understanding contemporary social groups, they may be improved when combined with other frameworks and theorists. We highlight as directions for future research manners in which gender and the environment interact with the habitus and food choices. Finally, this review points to new areas of investigation that may help improve the use of Bourdieu's concepts in exploring health inequalities, such as differences in eating practices and habitus within populations with low socioeconomic status. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents 1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 175 2. Material and methods ............................................................................................................. 176 3. Results .................................................................. ........................................................ 176 3.1. Social class ............................................................. .................................................... 176 3.2. Taste ....................................................................................................................... 179 3.3. The symbolism of food ....................................................................................................... 180 3.4. Food and body .............................................................................................................. 180 * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: pri.sato@gmail.com (P.M. Sato), jgittels@jhsph.educ (J. Gittelsohn), ramirofunsain@gmail.com (R.F. Unsain), roble@fef.unicamp.br (O.J. Roble), fernanda.scagliusi@gmail.com (F.B. Scagliusi). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Appetite journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/appet http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2015.09.010 0195-6663/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Appetite 96 (2016) 174e186