Socio-cultural factors influencing attitudes and perceptions on food and nutrition in Morogoro municipality

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Date

2010

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

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Publisher

Sokoine University of Agriculture

Abstract

All humans eat to survive. They also eat to express appreciation, for a sense of belonging, as part of family customs, and for self-realization. For example, some one who is not hungry may eat a piece of cake that has been baked in his or her honour. The term eating habits refers to why and how people eat, which food they eat as well as the way people obtain, store, use, and discard food. Individual, social, cultural, religious, economic, environmental, and political factor all influence people’s eating habits. Social factors and cultural practices in most countries have a great influence on what people eat, how they prepare their food, their feeding practices and the food they prefer (Baranowski et al., 2003). All people have their likes and dislikes and their beliefs about food and many people are conservative to their food habit. People eat according to learned behaviours regarding etiquette, meal, snack pattern, acceptable foods, food combinations, and portion sizes. A common eating pattern is three meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) per day with snacks between meals. The components of a meal vary across cultures, but generally include grains, such as rice or noodle, meat or meat substitute, such as fish, beans, and accompaniments, such as vegetable. (Klimas-Zacas et al., 2001).

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Keywords

Socio-cultural factors, Attitudes and perceptions, Food and nutrition

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