Meal construction: exploring the relationship between eating occasion and location

This paper reports on the findings from research into the relationship between eating occasions, location and meal construction. It draws on data collected from two convenience samples-British students and Australian students-and examines what they selected as appropriate foods for certain eating occasions (lunch, dinner, and snack) while constrained by physical location. In the present study, we sought to explore ways of dealing with the complex volume of data created when studying meals and food choice using a mixture of correspondence, cluster, and discriminate analysis. The study illustrates the utility of this approach for dealing with complex data and the analysis reveals the complexity between eating occasions, location and food choice. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.