We know what the rules are when you turn up for dinner. The host must provide enough to fill the bellies of their guest. The guest must express pleasure and eat enough to demonstrate enjoyment, but not eat their host out of house and home.
A guest must know when to stop eating – enough to demonstrate pleasure, but not enough to cost more, economically.
This is seen also in the way some really thin couples look, as though they subsist on each others’ love, foregoing alimentary nourishment. It is as though they wear their class on their (size small) sleeve. Likewise, you will see couples broadly mirror each other’s body weights (which are organised, often, along class lines). These are economic pairings.
Appetite aligns to class, and therefore to economics.
And as the UK’s poor stay both fat and hungry, the middle class resisted the worst of austerity, remaining slim and satiated.. merely eating out less.
Speaking of which – is it still disproportionately women who sacrifice their meals for their children and husbands, and therefore women who suffer the worst of the brunt of food scarcity.
Economics, gender and class are crawling over each other to influence, and in some cases, dictate, food intake. (But that is a much less catchy title).
Beth's Food and Sociology Blog 