"Do you take sugar?" Value, consumption, and sugar politics in Scotland

Overview
Sugar has been identified as a significant contributor to the global nutrition crisis. The World Health Organisation urges citizens worldwide to reduce sugar consumption to a minimum, on the grounds that sugar is nutritionally 'empty' and plays an aetiological role in the onset of obesity, diabetes type 2 and dental disease. As part of a wider move to improve children's health, the UK government aims to reduce sugar intakes through a 2018 levy on sodas containing over 5g of sugar per 100ml. Other measures include traffic light coding on pre-packaged products, and changes to the school curriculum. Yet there exists little knowledge as to why or how people consume sugar in everyday life.

This study examines the sociocultural significance of sugar and its consumption in Scotland. At a time when sugar has become the object of media attention and vitriol, and in a setting where national identities are entangled with stereotypes of 'infamous' eating practices and high rates of obesity, I argue that sugar practices offer a unique window onto tensions around
eating, expert knowledge, parenthood and moral responsibilities for health.

Theories of sugar consumption are currently dominated by public health, neuroscientific, and
medical models. Through the lens of per capita 'intake', neural pathways or pathology, these
approaches locate sugar consumption in the individual - rather than in society and culture. This PhD research seeks to critically appraise these models by situating sugar consumption in broader social context. Rather than asking why people fail to eat healthy diets, I draw on anthropological theories of value to explore why sugar matters to people and how it might mediate relationships with relatives, friends and the state. I do so through a long-term ethnography of people's lives in an Edinburgh area characterised by salient social inequalities.

Objectives:
To examine people's perceptions and understandings of sugar and its effects.
To investigate how the value of sugar consumption is transformed by social practices.

Research Questions:
How do experts and consumers classify sugar (e.g. as a food, drug, treat) in different contexts, and how does this affect consumer experiences?
What role(s) does sugar consumption play in dynamics of kinship and social relatedness?
What associations do people make between sugar and health, and how might this help us rethink what health means to people?
Methods
Ethnographic methods capture the complexity and intimacy of people's practices in a way surveys cannot. A community-based ethnography in Leith, Edinburgh, will produce a detailed analysis of sugar consumption as a social practice shaped by collective meaning, value and relationship. Once a port town invested in sugar refining, Leith's recent transformation from a post-industrial landscape featuring drug use and unemployment, to a gentrifying area attracting middle-class families, makes it a diverse and suitable site for a study of consumption.

Participant observations will be conducted primarily with adults and children oriented to two primary schools. I aim to develop working relationships with c. 15 households. Using a social ecology approach, I plan to accompany informants in sites such as homes, schools, shops, GP surgeries, dentists, friends' and relatives' houses, PTA meetings and leisure spaces. I also aim to carry out semi-structured interviews with adult family members in Leith and local 'experts' (GPs, dentists, shop managers, chefs, teachers).

Impact
This study seeks to contribute to an emerging anthropology of Scotland. Through a study of urban social relations, it brings medical anthropology and kinship studies into critical dialogue, placing theoretical questions about substance and value at the heart of a growing field of nutritional anthropology. It further aims to provide a novel perspective on social policy debates about sugar and diet in Britain.