Doing ‘proper’ food in later older age: gender and the significance of household meals

Based on longitudinal qualitative research with 46 older adults (80+) in North East England, this paper employs a Bourdieusian framework to examine the intersection of domestic eating, gender, age and identity within later life transitions. From minor 'tweaks' to using convenience foods, our participants employed various strategies to maintain 'proper' meal routines, an everyday practice idealised across the sample. Female participants were particularly adept at revising food routines; however, there was a fragility apparent in this orientation to practice. Their narratives about declining foodwork contained moralised references to laziness and carelessness. Male participants, in contrast, did not express such ambivalence. For recent widows, losing a partner significantly disrupted their gendered domestic habitus, in turn challenging their identities configured through care-orientated foodwork. Our analysis reveals that food remains a key site for identity negotiation in later older age, a relationship structured by habitus. Attending to the heightened awareness generated during the inevitable biographical disruptions of later older age, especially disruptions related to loss, highlights the durability of the gendered domestic habitus. Supporting ageing in place must move beyond dominant nutrition-focused understandings of food and instead recognise that food dispositions are informed by sociocultural frameworks.