Julie Hesselberg - 3rd year PhD presentation

Supervisors: Alice Grønhøj & Susanne Pedersen
Discussants: Tino Bech Larsen & Jessica Aschemann-Witzel

Abstract
The Danish food authorities explicitly encourage the population to eat more plant-rich, meat-reduced diets in the national dietary recommendations that, since 2021, have addressed both health and sustainability issues. Some consumers embrace the idea of reducing their meat consumption but only a slow and unequal diffusion of this trend has been realized. Even if many people intend to reduce their consumption of meat, the number of meals containing meat remain unchanged especially within families with children, illustrating the challenge of meat reduction within a ‘meat-loving’ culture. As a result, traditional, individual decision-making models increasingly struggle to account for consumers’ real-life behaviour in relation to sustainability, leading to a need for new approaches of understanding the ways consumers account for their decisions and subsequent choice. Aiming to address this issue, this project contributes to consumer and marketing literature by generating a family-oriented understanding of sustainable food consumption based on family process theory. In doing so, it contributes insights into practices of decision-making in families and highlights the collaborative relations to a research field which tends to have its emphasis on a ‘parents versus children’-perspective. Further, the project nuances the story of a ‘green revolution’ among the current generation of adolescents by addressing their engagement with sustainability issues in everyday, family contexts. This presentation covers three research papers: paper I represents a qualitative study undertaken with Danish families with adolescents highlighting the importance of family cohesion and child-centered approaches to food. Paper II focuses on adolescents’ perspectives and agency in terms of changing family diets by using qualitative data. Paper III is a quantitative, survey study undertaken with Danish parents and adolescents addressing relations between interpersonal, empathetic care and (un) sustainable meal choices.

Everyone is welcome!