Consumer behaviour Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Consumer behaviour - Essay Example n household organisation, handful rare articles on extraordinary behaviour such as children’s sweet, vegetarianism and health food buying, and important, mainly overlooked, historical evaluation of the changes in food habits in the UK and France (Wiessner & Schiefenhovel 1996). Historical documentations of food provision have a tendency to put emphasis on either the general levels of consumption in a particular society, on issues of extreme poverty and starvation, or on specific food provisions, such as sugar. Merely a handful of the common books on the food habits of the British people focus on the commercial condition of meals. Fast foods, restaurants and espresso bars are mentioned very occasionally in the directories of such writings. For instance, Burnett (1989) provides an inclusive synopsis of transforming behaviour in the UK ever since the momentous Industrial Revolution, explaining how disparities in class and ethnic backgrounds affected forms of diet and general norms of nutrition, and though there are informative and helpful concise sections on altering trends of eating out, merely an insignificant fraction of a sizeable book is dedicated to meals taken outside of the home (as cited in Fine et al. 1996: 82). General historical narratives of food habits and consumption in the United States have had used more mentions of the practice and, since the practice or habit of buying and consuming food on commercial vicinities is more traditionally established, the United States is better provided with literatures of both its historical and geographical distribution. Yet, literature remains inadequate. Therefore, this paper will explore and analyse available literature on food habits and food consumption behaviour of individuals in the various parts of the world, but particularly in the Western region, through the application of various theories of consumption. Outlooks of the West towards consumption have consistently been divided. On the one hand,