Globalization and food prestige among Indian adolescents.

Abstract

This study provides a foundation for understanding how globalization and changing food environments are linked to cultural models of food prestige in adolescents. We used methods from cognitive anthropology, including free lists, pile sorts, and consensus modeling, to explore the meanings that Indian adolescents attribute to foods. Adolescents (n = 29) were asked to free list foods eaten outside and inside the home. Di凌�erent adolescents (n = 65) were asked to pile sort and rank 30 foods identi▍�ed during the free lists according to which foods are the most prestigious, traditional, routine, and advertised on television. We found that adolescents overwhelmingly believed nontraditional foods to be the most prestigious. Nonlocal foods, both from foreign countries and other regions of India, as well as foods eaten outside the home, were also considered prestigious.