Our research investigates the significance of frequent solo consumption of main meals and the association with a holistic wellbeing measure of happiness using data from 39820 Thai Cohort Study members who completed 8-year follow-up in 2013. This nationwide cohort has been under study since 2005 to analyse the dynamics and determinants of the health-risk transition from infectious to chronic diseases. Here we analyse data from the 2009 and 2013 follow-ups. Approximately 11% reported eating more than half of the main meals per week alone. Sociodemographic attributes associated with eating alone were being male, older age, unmarried, smaller household, lower income, and urban residence. Dissatisfaction with amount of spare time (ie ‘busyness’) was also linked to eating alone. In the multivariate cross-sectional model, reporting being unhappy was associated with frequent solo eating (Adjusted Odds Ratio – AOR 1.54, 95% Confidence Intervals 1.30-1.83). Stratified by age and sex groups, the effects were strongest among females (AOR 1.90 1.52-2.38). A monotonic relationship linked frequent eating alone and 4-year longitudinal unhappiness. The larger the dose of unhappiness the greater the odds of eating alone – AOR 1.29, 1.31, 1.72 after controlling for potential covariates. Having a meal is not only important for nutritional and health outcomes; it is also a vital part of daily social interaction. Our study provided empirical evidence from a non-Western setting that sharing meals could contribute to increasing happiness.

Cho W, et al. Nutr Res Pract. 2015 Oct;9(5):523-529. https://doi.org/10.4162/nrp.2015.9.5.523

Food sovereignty is a trans-national movement that asserts the right of people to govern their own food system as an alternative to neoliberal food policies. In 2005, the Japanese government introduced the Basic Law of Shokuiku (food and nutrition education) to promote national food self-sufficiency, improve public health, and preserve local culinary culture through domestic food consumption. This paper argues that the campaign attempts to advance both governmental and public interests in food sovereignty by constructing common images of Japanese diets and nostalgia for rural agriculture; along the way it attempts to increase a sense of solidarity between urban consumers and rural producers. Nevertheless, the campaign focuses on consumer's food literacy, thus framing food sovereignty as responsibilities of people, and diverts public attention from structural issues embedded within the nation's food system, including national dependence on other countries for food security, as well as the marginal economic status of rural agriculture. Simultaneously, the feeling of nostalgia for rural agriculture remains, expanding an imaginary of food sovereignty among some urban consumers. Drawing on an investigation of policy discourses and in-depth interviews with young adult consumers in urban Japan, this paper examines how the notion of food sovereignty and Japanese diets have been constructed and advanced through the nationwide Shokuiku campaign. The decade-long campaign has evolved to become an agent of social control of urban consumer food consumption rather than helping consumers to play a role in establishing a system underpinned by food sovereignty as an alternative to the industrial present.