Prevalence and habits of cooking dinner at home in the USA

We examined national data from 2007 and 2008 that asked 10,149 Americans how frequently they cook dinner at home. On the whole, half of all Americans cook dinner 6 or 7 nights a week, though this varies across different populations. Poorer, less educated households tended to either cook dinner all the time or not at all, while wealthier, more educated households tended to be in the middle, sometimes cooking and sometimes not. It is encouraging that many Americans with lower income and less education cook regularly because these same communities are at the highest risk for poor health. Of course, these findings make sense when considering the effort and money it takes to get a kitchen up and running, and keep it going. Wealthier families can afford to occasionally not use everything in their refrigerators and pantries, whereas for poorer families, once food is purchased, there is no choice but to put it to good use. Cultural norms have a significant effect on people’s cooking patterns regardless of other factors. Hispanics born in the US and African Americans tended to cook dinner all the time or not at all, even when accounting for income and education level, while Hispanics born outside the US cooked the most of any group. This suggests that those who acculturate into marginalized segments of American society may decrease their frequency of cooking at home. Family structure also plays an important role. Those living with a partner/spouse or children tended to cook more th...
Source: The Nutrition Society - Category: Nutrition Authors: Source Type: news