UNHEALTHY FOOD CULTURE EXPLAINED BY HABITUS, REPRESENTATION SYSTEM, CULTURAL CAPITAL, AND NUTRITIONAL SOCIAL CAPITAL

Abstract

In the face of the rapid nutritional transition that Tunisia is experiencing, this research questions why unhealthy eating behaviors persist despite prevention campaigns. Mobilizing Bourdieu's theory of habitus, she models a sequential causal chain articulating nutritional cultural capital, nutritional social capital, health-body representations, food habitus, overconsumption and health consequences. A questionnaire was administered to 128 Tunisian adults. The measurement scales are validated by the literature. Following the verification of the dimensionality and reliability of the scales, the results show that three hypotheses are fully confirmed (H1, H4, H5) and two partially (H2, H3): cooking skills (β=.352) and family socialization (β=.356) structure habitus more strongly than institutionalized nutritional knowledge. Emotional eating (β=.442) and disinhibition (β=.376) are the main vectors of psychological and physical consequences. These results confirm that food inequalities are reproduced by embodied capital rather than by individual rational choices.