Article scientifique

Articles

• How the microbiome challenges our concept of self
  26 octobre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  Today, the three classical biological explanations of the individual self––the immune system, the brain, the genome––are being challenged by the new field of microbiome research. Evidence shows that our resident microbes orchestrate the adaptive immune system, influence the brain, and contribute more gene functions than our own genome. The realization that humans are not individual, discrete entities but rather the outcome of ever-changing interactions with microorganisms has consequences beyond the biological disciplines. In particular, it calls into question the assumption that distinctive human traits set us apart from all other animals––and therefore also the traditional disciplinary divisions between the arts and the sciences.

• Engagements militants, professionnalisés ou distanciés : les visages multiples de l’alimentation engagée
  27 octobre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  Cet article analyse les formes d’engagement existant dans la consommation engagée en prenant en compte l’ensemble des acteurs sociaux qui rendent possibles ces pratiques : consommateurs mais également producteurs, distributeurs ou encore fondateurs, salariés et bénévoles de réseaux associatifs. Il montre que ces actions politiques passant par le marché ne reposent pas uniquement sur de nouvelles formes d’engagement individualisées mais également sur des engagements militants plus traditionnels ainsi que sur ceux d’individus cherchant à concilier convictions et emploi. La coexistence de ces différents investissements est une source de difficultés pour les mouvements de l’alimentation engagée.

• The place of food : mapping out the ‘local’ in local food systems
  3 novembre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  ‘Local food systems’ movements, practices, and writings pose increasingly visible structures of resistance and counter-pressure to conventional globalizing food systems. The place of food seems to be the quiet centre of the discourses emerging with these movements. The purpose of this paper is to identify issues of ‘place’, which are variously described as the ‘local’and ‘community’ in the local food systems literature, and to do so in conjunction with the geographic discussion focused on questions and meanings around these spatial concepts. I see raising the profile of questions, complexity and potential of these concepts as an important role and challenge for the scholar-advocate in the realm of local food systems, and for geographers sorting through them. Both literatures benefit from such a foray. The paper concludes, following a ‘cautiously normative’ tone, that there is strong argument for emplacing our food systems, while simultaneously calling for careful circumspection and greater clarity regarding how we delineate and understand the ‘local’. Being conscious of the constructed nature of the ‘local’, ‘community’ and ‘place’ means seeing the importance of local social, cultural and ecological particularity in our everyday worlds, while also recognizing that we are reflexively and dialectially tied to many and diverse locals around the world.

• L’alimentation au cœur des sociabilités ville-campagne. L’exemple des marchés fermiers comme formes d’interactions entre populations agricoles et touristiques
  26 octobre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  L’expérience alimentaire associée au tourisme semble être le lieu de multiples aspirations et représentations, notamment en espace rural, donnant lieu à de nouvelles pratiques, offres et filières situées parfois en marge d’un développement touristique plus institutionnalisé. C’est le cas de l’agritourisme, défini comme l’ensemble des activités touristiques pratiquées sur une exploitation agricole et présenté comme moyen de diversification aux bénéfices multiples. Considérant le décalage entre perceptions du monde agricole et réalité du terrain, l’agritourisme, à travers la valorisation de produits agricoles et alimentaires, est analysé comme un moyen de renouer le dialogue et de tisser des liens entre population agricole et société civile. En encourageant un public de non-initiés à réfléchir et à penser l’agriculture, en valorisant des images et des pratiques spécifiques, mais aussi en partageant des valeurs et des visions contrastées du monde agricole et rural, les agriculteurs, à travers la valorisation de leurs produits agricoles et alimentaires, sont au cœur de processus d’interactions. Cette contribution vise ainsi, avec l’exemple des marchés fermiers, à questionner l’alimentation comme vecteur de nouvelles formes de sociabilités entre ville et campagne. L’analyse se base sur une étude exploratoire conduite en 2015 dans la région Midi-Pyrénées (France) auprès d’agriculteurs et d’agricultrices proposant des marchés sur leur exploitation agricole.

• Food swamps predict obesity rates better than food deserts in the United States
  3 novembre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  This paper investigates the effect of food environments, characterized as food swamps, on adult obesity rates. Food swamps have been described as areas with a high-density of establishments selling high-calorie fast food and junk food, relative to healthier food options. This study examines multiple ways of categorizing food environments as food swamps and food deserts, including alternate versions of the Retail Food Environment Index. We merged food outlet, sociodemographic and obesity data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Environment Atlas, the American Community Survey, and a commercial street reference dataset. We employed an instrumental variables (IV) strategy to correct for the endogeneity of food environments (i.e., that individuals self-select into neighborhoods and may consider food availability in their decision). Our results suggest that the presence of a food swamp is a stronger predictor of obesity rates than the absence of full-service grocery stores. We found, even after controlling for food desert effects, food swamps have a positive, statistically significant effect on adult obesity rates. All three food swamp measures indicated the same positive association, but reflected different magnitudes of the food swamp effect on rates of adult obesity (p values ranged from 0.00 to 0.16). Our adjustment for reverse causality, using an IV approach, revealed a stronger effect of food swamps than would have been obtained by naïve ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates. The food swamp effect was stronger in counties with greater income inequality (p < 0.05) and where residents are less mobile (p < 0.01). Based on these findings, local government policies such as zoning laws simultaneously restricting access to unhealthy food outlets and incentivizing healthy food retailers to locate in underserved neighborhoods warrant consideration as strategies to increase health equity.

• Comparison of sociodemographic and nutritional characteristics between self-reported vegetarians, vegans, and meat-eaters from the NutriNet-Santé study
  3 novembre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  There is a growing trend for vegetarian and vegan diets in many Western countries. Epidemiological evidence suggesting that such diets may help in maintaining good health is rising. However, dietary and sociodemographic characteristics of vegetarians and vegans are not well known. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to describe sociodemographic and nutritional characteristics of self-reported, adult vegetarians and vegans, compared to meat-eaters, from the French NutriNet-Santé study.

• Le genre de l’ivresse. Évolution des consommations d’alcool chez les étudiant-e-s
  26 octobre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  Le boire alcoolisé se prête particulièrement bien à une analyse en termes de genre. Cet article examine la construction sociale de la réalité concernant les modalités genrées du boire chez les jeunes, à partir d’une recherche en population étudiante. Entre le toxique et l’aliment, la « culture de l’ivresse » et la « culture du vin », le boire des jeunes et son évolution articulent différentes normes et différents rapports aux normes. L’évolution des rapports sociaux entre les sexes en matière de consommation estudiantine mérite d’être étudiée de près : contrairement aux discours récents de la prévention et de la santé publique mettant l’accent sur l’explosion des consommations chez les étudiants et la dissolution du genre, on observe avant tout le rapport étroit à l’ivresse qui évolue vers la modération et un maintien de la dissymétrie du genre tout au long des parcours de consommation.

• Ultra-processed products are becoming dominant in the global food system
  26 octobre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  The relationship between the global food system and the worldwide rapid increase of obesity and related diseases is not yet well understood. A reason is that the full impact of industrialized food processing on dietary patterns, including the environments of eating and drinking, remains overlooked and underestimated. Many forms of food processing are beneficial. But what is identified and defined here as ultra-processing, a type of process that has become increasingly dominant, at first in high-income countries, and now in middle-income countries, creates attractive, hyper-palatable, cheap, ready-to-consume food products that are characteristically energy-dense, fatty, sugary or salty and generally obesogenic. In this study, the scale of change in purchase and sales of ultra-processed products is examined and the context and implications are discussed. Data come from 79 high- and middle-income countries, with special attention to Canada and Brazil. Results show that ultra-processed products dominate the food supplies of high-income countries, and that their consumption is now rapidly increasing in middle-income countries. It is proposed here that the main driving force now shaping the global food system is transnational food manufacturing, retailing and fast food service corporations whose businesses are based on very profitable, heavily promoted ultra-processed products, many in snack form.

• When food systems meet sustainability – Current narratives and implications for actions
  27 octobre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  The concept of food system has gained prominence in recent years amongst both scholars and policy-makers. Experts from diverse disciplines and backgrounds have in particular discussed the nature and origin of the “unsustainability” of our modern food systems. These efforts tend, however, to be framed within distinctive disciplinary narratives. In this paper we propose to explore these narratives and to shed light on the explicit -or implicit- epistemological assumptions, mental models, and disciplinary paradigms that underpin those. The analysis indicates that different views and interpretations prevail amongst experts about the nature of the “crisis”, and consequently about the research and priorities needed to “fix” the problem. We then explore how sustainability is included in these different narratives and the link to the question of healthy diets. The analysis reveals that the concept of sustainability, although widely used by all the different communities of practice, remains poorly defined, and applied in different ways and usually based on a relatively narrow interpretation. In so doing we argue that current attempts to equate or subsume healthy diets within sustainability in the context of food system may be misleading and need to be challenged. We stress that trade-offs between different dimensions of food system sustainability are unavoidable and need to be navigated in an explicit manner when developing or implementing sustainable food system initiatives. Building on this overall analysis, a framework structured around several entry points including outcomes, core activities, trade-offs and feedbacks is then proposed, which allows to identify key elements necessary to support the transition toward sustainable food systems.

• Malaysian Food Barometer (MFB) : a study of the impact of compressed modernisation on food habits
  3 novembre 2021, par Mathilde COUDRAY

  The Malaysian society is undergoing rapid modernisation. The
  emerging middle class in Malaysia is influencing the lifestyles and traditional food habits of the main three ethnics (i.e. Malays, Chinese, and Indians). This article studied the impact of compressed modernisation on food in a multicultural context. The Malaysian Food Barometer (MFB), published in the year 2014, focuses on the socio-cultural determinants of food habits in Malaysia.