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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Kate GibsonORCiD, Emma McLellanORCiD, Professor Katie BrittainORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Based on longitudinal qualitative research with 46 older adults (80+) in North East England, this paper employs a Bourdieusian framework to examine the intersection of domestic eating, gender, age and identity within later life transitions. From minor ‘tweaks’ to using convenience foods, our participants employed various strategies to maintain ‘proper’ meal routines, an everyday practice idealised across the sample. Female participants were particularly adept at revising food routines; however, there was a fragility apparent in this orientation to practice. Their narratives about declining foodwork contained moralised references to laziness and carelessness. Male participants, in contrast, did not express such ambivalence. For recent widows, losing a partner significantly disrupted their gendered domestic habitus, in turn challenging their identities configured through care-orientated foodwork. Our analysis reveals that food remains a key site for identity negotiation in later older age, a relationship structured by habitus. Attending to the heightened awareness generated during the inevitable biographical disruptions of later older age, especially disruptions related to loss, highlights the durability of the gendered domestic habitus. Supporting ageing in place must move beyond dominant nutrition-focused understandings of food and instead recognise that food dispositions are informed by sociocultural frameworks.
Author(s): Gibson K, McLellan E, Brittain K
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Appetite
Year: 2026
Volume: 217
Print publication date: 01/02/2026
Online publication date: 15/10/2025
Acceptance date: 14/10/2025
Date deposited: 22/10/2025
ISSN (print): 0195-6663
ISSN (electronic): 1095-8304
Publisher: Elsevier BV
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2025.108349
DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2025.108349
Data Access Statement: The data that support the findings of this study are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.
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