Kia Ditlevsen

University of Copenhagen · Institute of Food and Resource Economics

Cultural conventions are central to tackling unsustainable consumption. In the Global North food conventions are increasingly contested due to the political importance of climate change and the share of global greenhouse gas emissions tied to animal food production and consumption. Significant reductions in meat consumption are touted as pathways t...

Background People living with HIV (PLWH) have low levels of physical activity. Using the social ecological model to understand perceptions, facilitators and barriers of physical activity in this population is of importance for developing contextualised interventions to improve physical activity in PLWH. Method This was a qualitative sub-study cond...

Intersectionality is a concept that has received little attention in scholarship on consumption, despite its significant relevance. Marie Plessz and Stefan Wahlen organised a roundtable held at the European Sociological Association (ESA) Consumption research network (RN5) interim meeting, 2 September 2022, in Oslo. This is a summarised and edited t...

Dietary health is a key theme of health policy and public debates on health and inequality. The social gradient in dietary health is evident, but less is known about the processes in everyday life through which less healthy diets are shaped among people with low socio-economic status. In this mixed methods study we recruited 30 men and women living...

Previous studies have shown that belief in the healthiness of organic food is a strong motive for buying organic. Typically, a positive relation between a nutritionally balanced diet (with respect to fruit, vegetables and meat) and organic consumption is also found. As market shares of organic food are much smaller than those of conventional food,...

Drawing upon data collected within 20 focus groups with consumers from five European countries, in this article we investigate how perceptions of human health risk and current anxieties regarding agricultural food production affect citizens’ acceptance of the use of an emerging biotechnology, synthetic biology, in the development of vaccines for an...

This article discusses anonymizing elite interviewees. Based on our experiences with interviewing professional elites and ultra-elites in different research projects, we describe how the types of conflicts involving analysis and publication change when interviewees are not promised anonymity. We discuss how contextualizing the elite positions of an...

Background People Living with HIV (PLWH) have low levels of physical activity. Understanding of perceptions, facilitators and barriers of physical activity in this population is of importance for future perspectives in developing contextual based intervention to improve physical activity in PLWH. Method This study explored perceptions, facilitator...

Food consumption and risks associated with it have changed substantially since the 1960s, yet the interpretation and conceptualization of ‘purity and danger’ have not evolved very much since Mary Douglas’ seminal work on the topic. In this study, we present an empirically based contemporary interpretation of purity and danger in relation to the con...

The article describes how the idea of “naturalness” was used by three different groups in arguments over the risk of livestock vaccines developed in synthetic biology. Based on interviews with two groups of scientific experts and focus groups with lay people in five European countries, and using Toulmin’s argument analysis as the analytical tool, t...

Local food has received considerable attention in recent years. It is seen as a response to increased demand for authentic foods, just as organic foods have been considered to be. It is unclear whether organic and local are two complementary or competitive trends in food consumption. This study addresses this question with a mixed methods investiga...

“Local” is becoming increasingly important in consumers’ food purchase decisions. Perceived benefits of local foods are rather similar to those of organic products, including aspects of taste, food safety, animal welfare and reduced environmental impacts. Yet, only limited knowledge is available regarding different consumers’ conceptualization of l...

There is increasing demand for organic food products throughout the Western world. Health concerns have frequently been found to be the main motivation of consumers purchasing organic products, but the literature on consumer preferences and behavior is less clear about what ‘health’ means to consumers of these products, and because of this it remai...

This qualitative study investigates health care practitioners’ approaches to early childhood obesity in Denmark and their view on their own ability to initiate processes of change in affected families, and it asks the overall question of whether perceived barriers become real through practitioners’ reluctance to intervene in families labelled as ‘p...

This article explores how health responsibility in relation to body weight management is institutionally enacted in three welfare institutions in the interplay between traditional ‘social interventionist’ welfare and ‘non-interfering’ neoliberal ideology. The analysis asks how citizens of non-Western origin at different life stages are positioned w...

Aims: This paper examines the importance of recruitment site in relation to the recruitment of ethnic minorities into health research. It presents a synthesis of experiences drawn from six interlinked Danish studies which applied different methods and used healthcare facilities and educational settings as sites for recruitment. Methods: Inspired...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide knowledge on barriers to preventive action on early childhood overweight in non-western migrant families. It investigates the underlying understandings of the parental role in relation to weight control present in health-care professionals and in families. Design/methodology/approach The study is b...

This qualitative study explores the structural barriers to preventive interventions targeting childhood obesity in the Danish health care system. Based on interviews with relevant health care professionals, the paper reports on the problems which are experienced by general practitioners and health visitors and which complicate implementation of the...