Introduction
Conventionally, the domestic sphere has been defined as a woman’s world, thus feminizing food, shopping, cooking, and eating, along with nutrition, dieting, weight loss, and health. In contrast, men have occupied the opposing side of the nature/culture, private/public, domestic/commercial divide, typically eschewing food and the body as feminine focuses rather than masculine pursuits. As a result, much research has focused on women and dieting, but studies of the intersections between men, masculinity, and food are relatively limited. Work exploring men and dieting is particularly scant.
Sex difference discourse abounds in the study of gender and dieting, as the similarities and differences between what, how, and why men and women eat (and do not eat) speak volumes about how societies construct gender. Past research, which is summarized in this entry, has sought to define masculine...
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Contois, E.J.H. (2013). Gender and Dieting. In: Thompson, P., Kaplan, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6167-4_472-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6167-4_472-1
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