Better decisions for food security? Critical reflections on the economics of food choice and decision-making in development economics
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Date
2020
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Cambridge Journal of Economics
Abstract
With malnutrition recognized as a key public health issue, attention has been
placed on how individuals can make better decisions to attain food and nutrition
security. Nevertheless, food practice entails a complex set of decisions that are not
fully understood. This paper interrogates the focus on food choice by investigating
how socio-economic relations shape practices of food provisioning. Given the
surge of behavioral approaches in development economics and our focus on a
middle-income country, we contextualize food choice in the transformations of
the conceptualizations of decision-making in development economics. We draw on
mixed-method evidence on food consumption practices among schoolchildren in
Accra, Ghana. We find that the food decision-making process is complex in that
it entails multiple moments and people, and embodies contradictory motivations.
Decisions are negotiated outcomes reflecting social relations of power among the
actors involved. Socio-economic inequality fragments the urban food environment
and material living conditions. Furthermore, the concentration of capital gives the
food industry the power to shape material and cultural relations to food in ways that
extraordinarily limit the scope for individual choice. This is a critical case study to
understand the contemporary dynamics of malnutrition in the urban Global South,
with broader relevance for the analysis of food poverty elsewhere.
Description
Research Article
Keywords
Decision-making, food, well-being, development, food industry