The ecology of food habits in contrasting environments : a study of rural and urban food habits in Papua New Guinea, with supplementary material relating to Australia

Abstract

This thesis comprises a series of studies of the ecology of food habits in three contrasting environments, in rural Papua New Guinea, urban Papua New Guinea, and urban Australia respectively. The thesis falls into three parts. The first part of the thesis, described as a conspectus, serves at once as an introduction to, and a synopsis of, the whole. The theoretical background and research methods are discussed, and the main findings from the three environments are compared; specific conclusions relating to nutrition are supplemented by more general conclusions relating to the broader concerns of human ecology. The second and major part of the thesis consists of a comparative study of rural and urban food habits in Papua Mew Guinea. Two sample populations were selected for study, both of them belonging to the Fore language group of the Eastern Highlands. The rural population consisted of subsistence horticulturalists with a small but growing participation in the cash economy; the urban population consisted of Fore migrants living in the coastal town of Lae, where most of the males were in full-time wage employment. The food resources, food beliefs and preferences, food consumption, and health and well-being of the two populations are described, and the interrelationships between these sets of variables are analysed. The conclusions are drawn that the urban diet, which is higher in protein and lower in bulk than the rural diet, results in improved growth rates and lower morbidity and mortality in children, but that it also carries risks of later development of diet-related degenerative diseases; and that dependence on imported foods also threatens selfreliance and long term ecological stability at both local and national levels. The report concludes with some suggestions for alleviating problems related to food and nutrition in each environment. The third part of the thesis comprises five papers relating to food habits in Australia. The first discusses the results of a postal survey of major food manufacturers, which inquired into their perceived role in the dissemination of nutritional information to the public. The second describes a survey of nutrition and food related material in a sample of Australian women's magazines. The third, fourth and fifth papers report on an interview-based survey of food habits and beliefs in a socioeconomically heterogeneous sample of one hundred and three households in a Canberra suburb. The results show great variation in the sample over a wide range of practices, beliefs and attitudes; they also demonstrate the existence of widespread concern in the community about various aspects of health and nutrition, and indicate a clear need for more appropriate nutritional information to be made available to the public.