Drawing from a qualitative study with 105 families across Canada, this paper focuses on 16 households in which one or more adults experienced significant social class trajectories in their lifetimes. Using semi-structured interviews and two photo-elicitation techniques, adults and teens articulated their perceptions of healthy eating, eating well, conflicts and struggles around food, and typical household food patterns. This analysis examines how habitus from class of origin can influence food dispositions, as well as how participants used food and talk about food to mark symbolic and moral boundaries on the basis of class. In particular, people used discourses of cosmopolitan and omnivorous eating, ethical eating, and healthy eating, as well as the moral virtue of frugality, to align or dis-identify with class of origin or current class location. Our analysis shows that food can be a powerful symbolic means of marking class boundaries.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Beagan, B. L., Power, E. M., Chapman, G. E., (2025), "“Eating isn’t just swallowing food”: Food practices in the context of social class trajectory", HSSCommons: (DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v2i1.50)

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1. class mobility
2. class trajectory
3. eating habits
4. eating patterns
5. social class

Original publication: Beagan, Brenda L.; Power, Elaine M.; Chapman, Gwen E. "“Eating isn’t just swallowing food”: Food practices in the context of social class trajectory." Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation, vol. 2, no. 1, 2015, pp. 75-98. DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v2i1.50. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation. Copyright © the author(s). Work published in CFS/RCÉA prior to and including Vol. 8, No. 3 (2021) is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY license. Work published in Vol. 8, No. 4 (2021) and after is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA license. For details, see creativecommons.org/licenses/.