新西兰APA格式assignment指导：The food people eat reflects who they a

1.0 Introduction介绍

食品消费产生的收入占酒店收入的很大一部分，如何为消费者提供合适的食品，给消费者一个良好的消费体验，对酒店获得理想收入有积极影响（林毛，2015）。为了实现这一目标，酒店管理者必须深入了解顾客在食品消费中的心理、行为、动机等方面的信息。因此，一些学者认为，消费者吃食物不仅是为了避免饥饿，而且是为了满足个人喜好，反映自己的品味或社会地位，以及满足其他需求（Bourdieu 1984）。一方面，一些内部和外部因素影响着消费者对食物的选择，另一方面，消费者的选择也可以是一种有效的反应，反映出他们的个性、爱好、社会地位、文化甚至民族信息（Hallam和Baum，1996年）。虽然其他学者持相反的观点，但他们认为人们对食物的选择不能反映个性的信息特征（林毛，2015）。相反的结论可能会使酒店相关员工感到困惑，因为他们需要通过观察人们所吃的食物来了解消费者的食物消费行为特征是否可行，从而以此为基础进一步制定相关的营销和管理策略。为了解决这一矛盾，本文从社会学的角度出发，结合阶级理论、狂欢主义理论和微观权力理论，以及一些实证研究的结果，探讨人们吃的食物是否能反映他们是谁。

Revenue arising from the consumption of food occupies a large share of income of a hotel, how to provide proper food to consumers to give consumers a good consumption experience has a positive effect on how the hotel acquire an ideal income (Lin and Mao, 2015). In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary for hotel managers to have a deep understanding of information about customers’ psychology, behavior, motivation in food consumption. Thus some scholars believe that consumers eat food not just to avoid starvation, but to meet their individual preferences and reflect their own tastes or social status, as well as to meet other needs (Bourdieu 1984). On the one hand, some internal and external factors affect consumers' choices of food, on the other hand, consumers’ choices can also be an effective response which reflects their personalities, hobbies, social status, cultures and even ethnic information (Hallam and Baum, 1996). While other academicians hold a contrary view, they think that people’s choice of food can not reflect the information characteristic of individuality (Lin and Mao, 2015). The opposite conclusion might make hotel-related employees confused, as they need to know whether it is feasible for them to understand the characteristics of consumers' food consumption behavior through observing the food that people eat, so as to based on this to further develop relevant marketing and management strategies. To resolve this paradox, this essay is from the perspective of sociology, combined with class theory, carnivalesque theory and micro-power theory, as well as some of the results of empirical research to discuss whether the food people eat can reflect who they are.

2.0 Main body主体

2.1 Social class社会阶层

考虑到消费现象的研究，不同的学科视角导致不同的消费研究方式（Williams、Crockett、Harrison和Thomas，2012）。长期以来，经济学是从个人理性选择的角度来断言消费是由个人收入和心理偏好决定的（福柯，1963）。社会学以社会结构为基础，指出个人总是处于一定的社会结构中，提倡用社会阶层来解释消费现象：

专业人士的主要特点是他们在昂贵产品上的开支比例很高，特别是肉类，尤其是最昂贵的肉类（小牛肉、羊肉、新鲜水果和蔬菜、鱼和贝类、奶酪和开胃酒）。

Considering the study of consumption phenomena, different subject visual angles lead to different ways of researches on consumption (Williams, Crockett, Harrison and Thomas, 2012). For a long time, economics is from the perspective of individual rational choice to assert that consumption is decided by personal income and psychological preferences (Foucault, 1963). Sociology is based on social structure to point out that individuals are always in a certain social structure, it advocates explaining consumption phenomena with social class:

“The members of the professionals are mainly distinguished by the high proportion of their spending which goes on expensive products, particularly meat and especially the most expensive meat (veal, lamb, mutton), fresh fruit and vegetables, fish and shellfish, cheese and aperitifs .” 

Bourdieu (1984) considers that the most important elements of social class are the amount and structures of various capitals and social trajectory (Swartz, 2006). According to these three criteria, Bourdieu defines social class. First is the amount of capital. Capital is a concept representing the sum total of economic capital, cultural capital and social capital. Second is the composition of capital. Bourdieu uses the concept of "capital structure" to represent the proportions of different types of capital. People have more economic capital and less cultural capital, or they have more cultural capital and less economic capital, which leads to their entirely different positions in a social class. Third, Bourdieu uses the concept of class trajectory to explain how the total social capital and the proportions that individuals and social groups have change with time-variation. He believes that different classes, different members within a class can not have the same development experience, and therefore, even members of the same class have their own special mark or style in their class habits. Bourdieu is based on the difference of total capital to divide the differentiation between French classes. Bourdieu thinks that there are three different classes in French society, namely, ruling class, middle class and working class, restraining by their class habits, members of different classes have their own unique class natures, they enter fields of different tastes and by choosing different lifestyles to show their class identity, indicating relations and social distance between themselves and the other classes. Members of different classes have different practices, they have different habitus, different tastes, including aesthetic, dietary habits, physical natures, ways of living and so on. Different consumers are different in the choice of consumption patterns. The basic characteristics of upper class emphasize forms more than functions. In eat a meal, they consider the forms of dining behavior: the lights, the music, the service. Lower classes do not consider how to eat, but what to eat, and if they are able to afford, what they are looking for are the most real materials and most affordable food (Hallam and Baum, 1996). Of course, in the process of food consumption, consumers are not entirely passive, in addition to restraining by rules of their own class, their consumption behavior also unconsciously changes the rules. Main consumers of a same class continuously form their own special habits, hobbies, tastes in food consumption process.

2.2 Micro-power theory

Micro-power theory is a theoretical system constructed by a contemporary French thinker named Michel Foucault, he explains micro-power as follows: 

“But the development and generalization of disciplinary mechanisms constituted the other, dark side of these processes. The general juridical form that guaranteed a system of rights that were egalitarian in principle was supported by these tiny, everyday, physical mechanisms, by all those systems of micro-power that are essentially non-egalitarian and asymmetrical that we call the disciplines .” 

He (Foucault, 1975) proposes that micro-power theory has the following two features. First, the power is everyday, tiny and specific. This is his basic judgment for power. He believes that in the whole modern society, power is already immersed in all aspects of life, it can be captured in the smallest place. Second, power is a kind of relation and a kind of network. Traditional power theory takes power as a sort of ability or a sort of resource, it is the property which can be possessed, strived for and transferred. Foucault (1975) claims that power is a kind of relation, this power relation can be considered to be in a flowing and circulated process, and this kind of power relation is not a one-way relation of dominating and being dominated, but forming a looped, interwoven network. Everyone is just a point of power relation, it can be both perpetrators of power and objects of being implemented. Based on micro-power theory, Foucault further notes that in the modern society constraining by public opinion and various means of disciplines, people increasingly have individual character. By concrete and tiny division of work, people from all walks reflect the characteristics of their own personality because of their rules and regulations, professional nature, industry characteristics, ranges of knowledge or dresses. Extending from Foucault's theory, it can be concluded that the food people eat will be affected by their disciplines, careers, ideas, knowledge and many other aspects, so by focusing on what people eat can understand some of their information and characteristics of their personalities.

2.3 Carnivalesque theory

Bakhtin is a world famous scientist, sociologist and critic, semiotician. One of the important contributions of Bakhtin’s in sociological theory is proposing carnivalesque theory. Bakhtin's carnivalesque theory divides the human world and the society into two parts, the first world is the official and serious, hierarchical world. The ruling class has unlimited power, and the civilian population is living a normal, cautious everyday life, they are cautious to and submit to of authority, power, truth, dogma. The second world is a carnival-style living, Bakhtin describes the second world as that, in the carnival world, people's behavior has not been affected by class, property, position, grade, and other factors, so the food that people eat is just their improvised choice, it can be deduced from his theory that he does not believe that the food people eat can reflect who they are.#p#分页标题#e#

2.3 Discussion

It can be found from Bakhtin's carnivalesque theory that he believes that in the carnival world, people's behavior is not affected by class, property, position, grade and other factors, thus it can be inferred that it is difficult to be based on the food people eat to reflect who they are. In reality, such cases do exist. For example, Mynttinen, Logrén, Särkkä-Tirkkonen and Rautiainen (2015) point out today, there are nearly 300 million of the world's population who leave their homes (Garnweidner, Terragni, Pettersen and Mosdøl, 2012). People of different races, different classes, different nationalities influence each other, their food cultures are also fused to some extent (Garnweidner, Terragni, Pettersen and Mosdøl, 2012). On the one hand, what people eat are more diversified, for instance, oriental dishes including Japanese food, Chinese food is loved by many people in Europe and America, and Western dining etiquette of European countries and North America has also been recognized and followed by Asians (Hallam and Baum, 1996). On the other hand, under the influence of globalization, what people eat shows a convergence trend, McDonald's, KFC and other fast food have a large number of fans in both East and West, whether it is white-collar or blue-collar, both are fans of the food (Mynttinen, Logrén, Särkkä-Tirkkonen and Rautiainen, 2015). Therefore, in some special time, it is difficult to determine a person from the food that he eats. 

However, it should be noted that recipe exchange also leads to the stereotype, and even discrimination of people towards food of special areas. For example, in Zizek’s (2000) book “The Ticklish Subject”, he discusses how Jewish dietary habits lead to the discrimination of people in Germany and other areas against them. Italian and French food is usually considered to be a high-quality food for high-level social character, which to some extent confirms that what Bourdieu proposes is correct. In the process of globalization, various ethnic groups strive to maintain their traditional food cultures, for instance, Indian diet pays attention to the mysterious taste of curries; people from Caribbean and Puerto Rico require the mixture of the color, flavor, taste of food and music in diet; in terms of the food consumption concept of postmodern people, on the one hand, they attach importance to cross-border integration of various types of food, on the other hand, they emphasize the maintenance their own traditional food cultures (Mynttinen, Logrén, Särkkä-Tirkkonen and Rautiainen, 2015). For example, Chinese people eat more than 600 kinds of vegetables, which are six times more than people in the West. Fresh vegetables occupy an important position in the normal diet structure of Chinese people (Marcus, 2013). Europeans and Americans eat meat most. Meanwhile, the Chinese people pay more attention to the taste of food, while Europeans and Americans pay more attention to food nutrition. Therefore, by the choice and flavors of foods, it can generally understand the cultural background of consumers.Globalization prompts dissemination of some new ideas, such as environmentalism, animal protectionism in the world (Lin and Mao, 2015), which also has an impact on the food that people eat, for example, many animal conservationists refuse to eat shark fin, which indicates that in making choices of what to eat, they are constrained by the disciplines, personnel engaged in hotels can understand some of their characteristics from their choice of food, which confirms the correctness of Foucault’s theory. These facts show that in the same context of globalization, people's race, class or other extrinsic factors also have an impact on what they eat, through observation and understanding of their food choices, some information about them can be deduced.

Through the above analysis, the author believes that under certain conditions, according to the food that people eat, it is really difficult to reflect who they are. For example, considering those who choose fast food, the proportion of the consumer groups is too large, and their food tastes and the food are standardized, hotel managers are very difficult to collect consumer information based on fast food. But in most other cases, what people eat can reflect their individual characteristics, for instance, in eating steak, Asians are more accustomed to eating well done steak, and Westerners in general prefer the rare, the medium. Similarly, in eating Chinese food, Chinese people prefer spicy food, Westerners are more accustomed to a little lighter taste (Mynttinen, Logrén, Särkkä-Tirkkonen and Rautiainen, 2015). Even in the environment of carnival that Bakhtin sets, the food that people eat is mostly based on real-time decision and it may not be entirely accurate to reflect who they are, but in different classes, different cultural backgrounds, people of different personalities may be different in making such an immediate decision, for example, a young man who do not like drinking may drink in participating in parties, but he is more likely to choose beer, rather than whiskey. Therefore, according to the food that people eat, it can make a preliminary judgment about who eat the food.

Moreover, from the physical and psychological decision-making point of view, the food that people eat can reflect who they are. Lin and Mao (2015) mention that people rely on their sense organs to identify and understand food symbols, the sense organs contact with the material form of symbols and transmit the information to brain, the brain is based on "acquired experience" to analyze the meaning of the symbols from the symbolic form, thereby affecting their own choice of food. In identifying food symbols, people give full play to the role of vision, hearing, taste, smell, touch and other sensory channels. Under normal conditions, people emphasize taste of food, they choose their favorite flavors and odors, or even dinning atmosphere.

Lin and Mao (2015) analyze that postmodern people like aftertaste of music, pop culture a few years ago, people are through postmodern diet to get past experience, for example, on the walls of some five-star hotels, there are images of politicians in the 1950s and 1960s, and the choice of dishes, the waiters’ clothing, facial expressions and serving style are also showing a nostalgic atmosphere. In many highly urbanized cities, the renaissance is often nostalgic theme, the Romanesque architecture, Greek pillars and internal retro styles of a lot of five-star hotels allow consumers to have the illusion of time and space crisscross, the hotels use these to emphasize the cultural taste of food. Thus the food that people eat can reflect who they are.

Hallam and Baum’s (1996) study also shows that in addition to tastes, high-level consumers also emphasize the aesthetic of food. For example, they are concerned about whether food is beautiful and has creative style, whether dishes are mix ingeniously and nutritious. Therefore, when consumers pay special attention to the beauty and collocation of food, it often reflects the high social status of such consumers or they are relatively tasteful.

Marcus (2013) finds that more and more people are concerned about the health significance of food. Consumers will combine with their own physical health to make decisions on food. The health significance of food is generally reflected in two aspects: one is based on the content of protein, fat, carbohydrates, according to a "balanced" principle to choose the variety of food; the other is based on consumers’ own situation to choose food varieties, diabetic avoids sugar, they are cautious for sweet foods (Williams, Crockett, Harrison and Thomas, 2012). Therefore, from the food that people choose, it can also reflect their attitude for healthy food or their own state of health.

All in all, in most cases, people’s choices of food will be based on many internal and external factors, such as their own special backgrounds or special disciplines, or their own preferences, or past experience, or their own special physical conditions and so on. Therefore, the author thinks that in most cases, the food that people eat can reflect who they are, thus this study supports Foucault’s and Bourdieu's theory.

3.0 Conclusion

Whether the food that people eat can reflect their personal information or characteristics of their personalities is important for hotel management personnel in developing correct marketing and management strategies. According to Bourdieu’s and Foucault's theory, people's consumption behavior is influenced by their own class, occupation, personality, and many other external factors, so depending on the food that people eat to determine who they are is largely feasible, and Bakhtin's theory shows that in a carnival atmosphere, their behavior has not affected by class, property, family status, position, grade, and other factors, thus it can be deduced from his theory that he does not believe that it can understand some information and personalities of people from the food they eat. The author believes that under certain conditions, it is really difficult to understand the personal information of consumers according to the food that they choose, but in most other cases, food that people eat can reflect their personal information and personalities, hotels still can be based on the food that people choose to understand their consumption behavior characteristics in order to facilitate the further development of relevant marketing and management strategies.

 

References

Bakhtin, M. (1984). Rabelais and his world. Indiana University Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: social critique of the judgment and taste. Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd: USA.

Foucault, M. (1975). Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. New York: Random House.#p#分页标题#e#

Garnweidner, L. M., Terragni, L., Pettersen, K. S. and Mosdøl, A. (2012). Perceptions of the host country’s food culture among female immigrants from Africa and Asia: aspects relevant for cultural sensitivity in nutrition communication. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 44(4), 335-342.

Hallam, G. and Baum, T. (1996). Contracting out food and beverage operations in hotels: a comparative study of practice in North America and the United Kingdom. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 15(1), 41-50.

Lin, L. and Mao, P. C. (2015). Food for memories and culture – A content analysis study of food specialties and souvenirs. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 22, 19-29.

Marcus, J. B. (2013). Chapter 12 - Global food and nutrition: world food, health and the environment: practical applications for nutrition. Food Science and Culinary Professionals Culinary Nutrition, 545-605.

Mynttinen, S., Logrén, J., Särkkä-Tirkkonen, M. and Rautiainen, T. (2015). Perceptions of food and its locality among Russian tourists in the South Savo region of Finland. Tourism Management, 48, 455-466.

Williams, J.D., Crockett, D., Harrison, R. L. and Thomas, K. D. (2012). The role of food culture and marketing activity in health disparities. Preventive Medicine, 55(5),382-386.

Zizek, S. (2000). The ticklish subject: the absent centre of political ontology. Verso.