Change in Daily Eating Habits – Organization and Arrangement of Nutrition Patterns in the Context of Family and Public Compared Between Germany and Japan

Instead of looking at unknown social arrangements far away, comparative sociological research should investigate the alien within the known following suit the ethnographic research of modern industrial society. While comparing the development of western industrial states, sociology can get insights in the meaning of social problems, its circumstances and consequences.

This perspective will be presented by an on-going project comparing eating habits of everyday life between Japan and Germany. The stark contrast between European and Asian nutrition habits illustrated by the German-Japanese comparison is examined to discuss the correlation of malnutrition, change of family structures, gendered responsibilities, and daily eating habits in regard to cultural differences as well as to numerous similar characteristics of the current social change. Thereby, the focus is to be laid on specific and comparative analyses as to how the diagnose of “malnutrition” is made, which shape it assumes and which causes are being named. Ultimately, it has to be questioned what kind of regional country-specific solutions of the stated problem take root and which family-supplementing and also compensating functions can be taken by extra-familial agents of socialization in order to teach nutrition skills. Afterwards, different national approaches to a solution of the respective problems of how to arrange daily nutrition in the area of tension between private and public nutrition supply as well as their transnational learning potentials can be discussed.

To compare developed countries with each other in regard to particular problems will not only result in new knowledge about the research objectives but will also help to evaluate and develop the theory of World Society, whether the world is differentiating into a multiplicity of societies or unifies in a way which takes a segmental, regional differentiation into account.