Waraporn Boonkaewwan. Sweets & Children : senses, consumer culture, and society . Master's Degree(Medical and Health Social Sciences). Mahidol University. : Mahidol University, 2006.
Sweets & Children : senses, consumer culture, and society
Abstract:
This study examines the phenomena where children are developed into sweet
consumers via sensory perception and socio-cultural construction of the senses. The
methodology is an ethnographical approach, involving embedding in a rural community
of Nakohn Si Thammarat province, southern Thailand, for 10 months and using diverse
data collection such as mapping, writing field-notes, focus group discussion, in-dept
interview, participant and non-participant observation and household surveys.
The finding indicates that Thai society now involves a ‘sweet culture’ as integral
to lifestyle. In the past, the lifestyle of Thai people rarely involved consuming desserts
because sugar was unavailable and only produced in some households. In contrast, more
sugar is now available; therefore, sweets have become greater part of the modern rural
village, helped by factories producing sugars and sweet goods, transportation (roads,
vehicles,), electricity, convenient devices, advertisements etc. Nowadays the sweet is a
prominent and important taste, especially for children. They love to consume snacks and
soft drinks. This phenomena isn’t only influenced by a biological factor, sweet taste buds,
but also by socio-cultural construction creating a “children world” as social reality which
is compatible to sweets. Modern Thai society constructs a “children world” by discourses,
many institutions and consumer goods, that let children be autonomous and relatively free
from traditional authority. A “children world” is constructed as a world for eating sweets,
watching television and play giving a live of fulfilled imagination, freedom, fun,
adventure, and the sweetness of the age of innocence. In the mean time, it has transformed
“childhood” into a space of indulgence which is suitable for the consumption of soft
drinks and sweets including binding children to sweets that repeat reality of freedom and
authority of children. Otherwise, shaping the sensory world of children relates to sweets
towards constructing sensory perception of the sweet as good, special, and valuable
including constructing feeling of sweet consumption as delicious and refreshing and
giving happiness and energy. Additionally, shaping sensory perception of sweets is done
via culture of child rearing, interaction in everyday life, activities in peer children group,
rituals and fairs, as well as motivation of sweets consumption from advertisement media.
Although there is control of sweet consumption by some institutions due to
negative effects on health. Children still do eat sweets from negotiation with adults, in
spite of adults power over them, eventually adults comply with the child’s authority. In
conclusion, people accept that the structure of “children world” is coupling with sweets