The act of eating is essential for the survival of every living being. However, in addition to having a physiological function, I think that eating, for humans, is also synonymous with sociability. The latter is a particular being who needs to socialize and eat with others. In my opinion, eating in company would be beneficial both for our mind and for our body, and therefore essential for life.
Eating in a restaurant with friends, sharing a meal around a table with family, having a meal at a company table with colleagues, associates, eating in the school canteen with classmates, or even eating a sandwich on a bench between students at the university, that's what commensality is all about. Commensality is the act of eating collectively, in company, (Sobal and Nelson, 2003) regardless of the person and the environment in which one is located. This also means that commensality is distinct from conviviality. Friendliness is characterized by positive mutual relationships with people, plausible when sharing meals. However, it is also possible that eating in the company of someone is not necessarily convivial, even restrictive. Commensality can be individualized, where we eat in silence but in company, or collective, where exchanges exist. These two experiences can both be associated with a joint meal or a dish that differs from that of the guests. According to Claude Grignon, there is a typology of commensalities: institutional/private, subjective/chosen. (Grignon, 2001)
Sharing: the common table makes it possible to communicate between guests, to exchange and to learn from each other's cultures... Sharing is about food of course (especially if the dishes are shared) and the exchange can take place over and through food. For the sociologist Claude Fischler, eating is generally a collective and sharing act in many cultures.
The creation and maintenance of the link: eating in a community makes it possible to bring together, and (re) forge social ties between the guests. Sharing and consuming the same meal makes it possible to bring people together as well as to assimilate to them. (Foal, 2018)
Socialization: the people participating in the meal, and the meal itself, contribute to the emission of certain norms and values that are intended to be integrated into them. It therefore allows the learning of various common rules, specific to a company, allowing good collaboration. (Poulain, 2018) Commensality aims to socialize human beings with each other throughout life.
Refers to the degree of proximity: by commensality we can distinguish the forms of links that commensals maintain between them.
The impacts related to the Covid-19 crisis:
Closure of convivial places, especially food (restaurants, university restaurants, company restaurants, etc.)
Social distance (friends, families, work...) Working from home for many people
The current health crisis has consequently changed our behaviors, especially those related to food. This list of consequences impacts the notion of commensality and therefore generates and contributes to the fact of eating alone.
Consequences that can be attributed to eating alone:
Sloppy meals: especially for people working remotely, to devote more time to work; no separation between work and meals. [1]
Skipping meals, and undernourishment: especially for the elderly
Meals eaten on the go: reduced motivation to cook, because we only cook food for ourselves, the time spent cooking will decrease, and on the contrary, the preparation of quick meals will increase (ready-to-use dishes, meals delivered). [2]
Meal type with more fatty and caloric foods [3]: but insufficient to cover needs.
Snacking during the day [4]: may be linked to proximity to food, stress, or boredom.
Physical health consequences:
Repeated consumption of ready-to-use meals, or dishes that are easy to prepare and contain calories, carries health risks. Often, they do not allow the plate to be filled with the main components required to allow a good dietary balance. As a result, the meals consumed will be poorly balanced both during the day and during a meal.
When a lack of dietary diversity occurs, the result is an absence of nutrients, vitamins and minerals essential for the proper functioning of the body. Conversely, nutrients, and more specifically fats and carbohydrates, that will be ingested in quantity will accumulate in excess in the body, which will prevent it from functioning well. The lack of nutrients is also linked to undernourishment that can be caused by the isolation of a person, which also causes complications, especially in the elderly.
Eating alone also leads to a lack of time spent at the table, which may be linked to distractions, including the media. [5] However, eating quickly can cause discomfort in the body, and promote excess food intake. ➔ This can lead to:
Short-term: Energy loss, temporary and chronic fatigue, weight loss, weight gain.. Long-term: anemia, deficiency, undernutrition, nutritional disorders, eating disorders, overweight and obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases..
It should be noted that the loss of energy and fatigue contribute to a decrease in productivity at work [6], and accentuate the person's discomfort.
➔ Maintaining good eating habits: Throughout our lives, we acquire food skills and knowledge through numerous interactions with different people, especially through imitations, which will shape our eating habits. Eating in company therefore makes it possible to maintain them and why not to acquire new ones. The sharing of food, induces a certain dietary diversity, which provides many nutrients and micronutrients necessary for the body, it also allows the discovery of foods, which favors the introduction of new foods (for the person, the group, or even the society) and the discovery of others.
The meal is an institution that disseminates a certain number of norms and values that are more or less defined and common. Those attributed to him, such as fixed hours, would make it possible to maintain a certain dietary rhythm and would be favorable to better health. (Lalhou, 1995 in Poulain, 2018) Or again, the rules of politeness, including not getting up before the meal is over, contribute to the meal lasting.
According to the famous sociologist Claude Fischler, if the French are in better health (especially in relation to obesity) than other peoples, it is in part due to their shared meals. (Fischler, 2013)
➔ Better taste perception: How does taste form? Taste is primarily physiological, because specific receptors, nicknamed “taste buds”, allow us different perceptions of it, which differ from person to person. Taste is also cultural, it is learned over the course of an individual's life through various interactions and experiences. The concept of taste is therefore different from one person to another, both physiologically and culturally. (Fischler, 1990)
The perception of taste also depends on several factors, such as the concept of commensality. Sharing a meal with other guests contributes to the formation of common tastes within the same society and would have the function of accentuating taste sensations. It would be the simple fact that we perceive an empathetic feeling towards the person when the person experiences pleasure. This would activate the sensory zone responsible for the already stimulated taste, and would therefore have an amplifying effect on this taste perception. [7] The simple fact of seeing people happy and sharing, makes us contract pleasure.
Based on the sources of this article and my personal experiences, often eating alone can contribute to a chain of consequences that are harmful to a person's well-being. The current health crisis has caused consequences and changes in our daily lives, promoting distance between people, which, I think, can have an impact on our health. Strangers, acquaintances, colleagues, friends, families; share your meals, even remotely! It's good for our pleasure (gustatory and moral) and our body!
Enola Bouloumié is a Nutrition-Nutritionist Project Manager and a student in the last year of a Master's degree in Social Sciences Applied to Food. She is currently interning at Altermakers for the Tout Le Monde à Table project.
References:
Fischler Claude. The hominvore. Paris: Odile Jacob, 1990, 440p.
Fischler Claude. Conference: The anthropology of food at TEDx Paris Universities, 2013.
https://www. youtube.com/watch? v=j8bonu3cn6E
Grignon Claude. Commensality and Social Morphology: An Essay of Typology, in Scholliers Peter, Food, Drink and Identity Cooking, Eating and Drinking in Europe Since the Middle Ages, Oxford, New York: Berg, 2001, p. 23-33.
Jean-Pierre foal. Dictionary of cultures, PUF, (Quadrige. Dicos (pocket), 2012, 1536 p.
Sobal Jeffery. Nelson Mary K. Commensal eating patterns a community study. Apetite, 2003, no. 41, p. 181-190.
[1] Shut up Celia. Is eating alone such a big deal? Sous Cloche, the latest news about grilled food, 2020.
[2] Garau Emanuela. Eating alone at home: a food wreck or an invigorating moment just for yourself? , La Libre, 2018.
[3] HQ. Is it good to eat alone? , 2017, [online]. Available on https://www. gqmagazine. fr/lifestyle/news/articles/is-is-it-alone-eating-/57302. (Accessed 8-3-2021).
[4] Perrier Agathe. Alone and in lockdown: our advice to get out of it. ConsoGlobe, 2020.
[5] Cook. 10 tips for learning to eat slowly, [online]. Available at https://www. cook.com/slideshow/tips-to-eat-slowly-337/internal/1. aspx. (Accessed on 25-3-2021).
[6] Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety. Fatigue, 2021, [online]. Available at https://www. cchst.ca/oshanswers/psychosocial/fatigue.html. (Accessed on 1-4-2021)
[7] Bohler Sébastien. Eating with several people is much better! . Brain & Psycho, 2014.
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