Food Gendering and Its Effect on Diet Control

Stop, drop, and cancel your cable. Technology is controlling our minds, clothing options, AND what we put in our bellies.

By: Miani Stafford

Many are aware of all that goes into their belly. However, it seems that American society is more unaware of why they are putting certain foods in their bodies as opposed to others. The power of food advertisements, like commercials or grocery store promotions, has an extreme effect on what we may deem “acceptable” for our gender. In simpler terms, technology and the media project stigmatized food gendering based on societies stereotyping of genders. Ever wonder why we typically only see men in the burger and beer commercials and only see women in salad and yogurt commercials? Directly, this has resulted in unconscious food insecurity and unconscious diet control of many individuals. Because individuals are programmed to follow the stigmas aligned with their gender, it comes easy for the gendering of food to arise from society’s active participation in stereotyping genders in the media, resulting in unconscious food insecurity and unconscious diet control. Let’s understand together why food gendering is happening in the first place, how it is seen (or unseen) right before our eyes, and what it is resulting in.

The Power of Programming Gender Stereotypes

We can understand why these food genderings happen so easily and loosely under our noses when considering how children see advertisements and how they are raised in this society of stigmatization. Researcher and author N.H. Child’s crafted a studying to understand the idea of why certain foods are assigned to certain genders by taking a look at the food commercials that play between kids' shows. They analyzed these commercials and depicted the effect of the script reader on the foods and the activity level of the actor holding the food, concluding with a comparison of what foods boys will lean-to and what foods girls will lean to. It gives an indirect impression of gender importance for the product.

These researchers found that since men advertise foods that are gendered for boys (like chicken, fries, etc.) and women advertise foods that are gendered for girls (candies/greens), children become naturally programmed to assign themselves to certain foods. Meat, especially red meat, is considered the quintessential boy food, whereas fruit, vegetables, dairy, desserts, and fish are considered typical girl food. This leads us to understand the idea that men are programmed to be sloppy, as they are subjected to finger foods and women are programmed to be poise, as they are subjected to light foods. This programming is ruining the diet culture of both genders, though, and affecting the way each gender sees what is socially acceptable for them to consume in lunch settings and on dates.

This research has allowed an understanding as to why food gendering has gone on to continue for this long, and James Barker’s short novella A Secret Book for Men (1888) allows us to discover why men feel more comfortable taking direction from a male voice over a female voice. Barker mentions that “... the intricate and occult sympathy between body and mind necessitates that both the character of the individual and of his actions shall more or less be affected directly”, emphasizing that boys are easily heard and understood by other boys.

This directly explains the study above, tying together why a gender may be more likely to choose certain foods over other foods, which is the root of food gendering as a child. However, the gendering of foods has now extended to adult life; now steak is for men and salad is for women? Paul Freedmon, author of his new book titled American Cuisine: And How It Got This Way, discusses how “the idea that women don’t want red meat and prefer salads and sweets didn’t just spring up spontaneously”, furthermore suggesting that men and women were programmed into this mindset by technology and advertisements of these foods.

He states that “By the early 20th century, women’s food was commonly described as “dainty,” meaning fanciful but not filling. Women’s magazines included advertisements for typical female foodstuffs: salads, colorful and shimmering”, alluding that while women were programmed to be soft and dainty, men were programmed to be rough and sloppy.

A study conducted by several researchers in 2011 regarding the differences in snack intake evaluates the different genders after commercial viewing of food advertisements. The study examined the direct effects of watching television food commercials on concurrent non-advertised snack food intake in young adults, determining the fact that girls tend to eat what they see women in food commercials eating, and boys eat what they see men in food commercials eating. It also determined that, as opposed to men, food intake in women was higher when they watched the food commercials than when they watched the neutral commercials

This research conclusively wraps up why programming has caused an increase in food gendering, but is this only pre-conceived? If so, how? If not, what else can we blame for food gendering?

Diet Culture Stems From Technology

We can now understand why the gendering of food has increased significantly as time increases, but there is another positive and direct correlation with time and that is technology. Technology and the media have gone every bit up since the roaring Golden Age and technological advancement in terms of movies, their premieres, and their movie trailers. Though these trailers dont involve food, the addition of them throughout the 19th century is what rocketed the use of technology and the effect it had on the American mind. Thus, shifting into the 20th century when commercials and advertisements became normal for everything and not just Hollywood films, they too had a major effect on the American mind.

Neighmond discusses the very distinct and direct effect that social media has on children’s diets. Her main claim is that sways them to eat sweets over the required protein, vegetables, grains, etc. She is not referring to the gendering of food, more so how much media has an effect on people in general, thus supporting the idea that diet culture is formed from technology.

Here, we are able to notice the specificities of the raging food gendering, recognizing the play time for each advertisement. While programmed minds as children through the commercials between kids' shows is the root of food gendering and society's oblivion to it, technology and advertisements/commercials are the driving boat when understanding how it is still present in this adult life.

The Washington Post tells us how technology pressures society to gender foods in their short article written by Christie Brissette titled Is Meat Manly and How Society Pressures Us to Make Gendered Food Choices, and The Conversation agrees. It talks about the male appetite versus the female appetite and how that's projected through commercials and advertisements of these food items.

Conclusively, food gendering being forecasted by media networks, whether that is through movies, social media, commercials, or advertisements, is an act of food provisioning as a gendered act. We now understand the power gender stereotypes have on diet culture and the fact that diet culture is formed through technology, but why has this not been stunted despite being so obvious? The truth is in our history of gender inequality.

Food Insecurity and Gender Inequality

The reason why food gendering has, unfortunately, prospered with pre-meditated gendering stereotypes and the dismantling of diet culture through media is because of the gender inequality that was founded in our US history. Women have always been seen as an image to be pure and dainty, so when it comes to food, the idea of women eating food that is “light-weight” and “healthy” is what is expected. Men eating meat and heavy foods sprouts the assumption that they are “strong” and “hardy”, and this is just an example of how gender inequality lives vicariously through food.

For further context, though, this gender inequality presented in our history has not left, as even the gender wage gap is still ginormous.

When it comes to food gendering, though, this is problematic given that women continue to be predominantly responsible for food provisioning in the US and that this responsibility can lead to negative physical, psychological, and social outcomes. Maher brings up the idea that boys eat first because they “just can’t wait”. She concludes that ‘food advertising should consider gender bias among other factors when proceeding with self-regulation of children’s advertising”, which is relevant here when considering gender inequality and its effect on food insecurity.

Food as a subject of love ties into the gender roles presented to be played in society as well. Advertisers have historically promoted food in distinctly gendered terms, returning repeatedly to themes that associated shopping and cooking with women. Notice how “normal” it is to recognize women as the ones cooking and serving food. Women serve food to demonstrate love or care for their families, but women being prescribed this role is an act of gender inequality. Coincidingly, this gender role can lead to a decreased want to food for themselves. In other words, food work as a source of power and respect is established, and women are on the lower end of the spectrum.

Coming from a woman, the best way to reject the pressure of gender roles and the effect it has on personal food insecurity is to befriend your body. Tagle tells us that as a community of women, it is so easy to slip into the mindset of following the diet culture presented on social media, and from reading this blog, we know that the diet culture presented through technology is not reliable and is stuffed with more gendering of both roles and food. This mindset follows the exact mindset that the advertisers and their media commercials want us to have, which is that only certain foods belong to certain genders. The culture of our society does not help this fight for a gender-neutral egalitarian diet, and since food is culture and everything is affected by culture, food gendering may be hard to snap out of.

It is clear how food gendering is ruining the diet culture of society, but culture is society and food is culture. If the advertising watchdog really wants to remove harmful gender stereotypes, it needs to recognize and address how the invitation to consume any bodies as objects for enjoyment reinforces these destructive power relations and objectifies women.

It is extremely important to understand what your body is inhaling, both literally and visually, when scrolling through the media about food or through casual viewing of food advertisements. The power that lives in predetermined gender norms and the United States’ history of gender inequality is becoming even more prominent through technology despite being so easily disguised, resulting in unconscious food insecurity and unconscious diet control from its projectors.