vi. With whom did shiftworkers eat?

As chapter 2 showed, meals are social occasions, and the pleasure gained from eating and conversing with others is part of the occasion. It may be thought that shiftworkers would seek social contact with colleagues at mealtimes as their shift schedule could have made it difficult for them to socialise with non-shiftworkers, as suggested by Walker (1985), summarised in chapter 4.

I found that sizeable groups of shiftworkers in my sample had eaten meals alone on their last workday. For example, 44.7% of the 85 respondents who ate a first meal on their last day at

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work ate alone, as did 37.7% of the 77 who answered this question, and ate for a second time on their last day at work. Meals eaten alone might have been enjoyed less, or rushed.

However, to ask with whom shiftworkers ate a meal is open to different interpretations. It might also have been that some of my respondents were eating in the presence of, but not with others, such as eating a sandwich in an office surrounded by other colleagues who were still working. This is a different situation to that of a meal shared with colleagues who are all eating.

Enjoyment of the meal, and experience of the meal break as a time free from work, are likely to be reduced for the worker surrounded by others still at work.

Murcott (ed) (1983) attached a special significance to eating with other family members, seeing this as a feature of the ‘proper’ meal, and suggesting that it was eating together and eating the same food, prepared by the mother, which gave the ‘proper’ meal its special quality. My findings suggested that eating with the familv was possible for only a minority of shiftworkers on workdays, as a result of their work schedules. This raised questions about the significance of

‘proper’, family meals in these households. Did shiftworkers perhaps attach more significance to family meals as they were a rare occurrence, or did they regard such meals as less important?

These issues are discussed in more detail in chapter 9 in the context of food and eating at home.

On non-work days, shiftworkers were less likely to eat alone. In contrast to workdays, they were more likely to eat with another person at the third eating occasion of the day, as 86% of the 70 respondents who had eaten a third time, and answered this question, had done so. 77% of these 70 respondents had eaten with their partner and /or partner and children.

It is possible that shiftworkers in my study used the opportunity to eat with their family on non­

work days as many indicated that they were often unable to do so on workdays. When I asked my respondents how often they were able to eat with their family, 52.3% of the 65 workers living with a spouse / partner and /or children who responded to this question, reported that they were only able to eat together as a family at weekends, as shown in table 7.9.

Table 7.9:How often do you usually eat together as a family?

Frequency Valid Percent

Valid Never 3 4.6

some days in week 16 24.6

Weekends only 34 52.3

Most days 9 13.8

Other 3 4.6

Total 65 100.0

N = 65, 55 missing cases

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A further 24.6% of those who responded to this question indicated that they ate together on some days of the week. 4.6%, however, indicated that they never ate together as a family. Just as shiftworkers tended to often eat alone, it was also the case that shiftworkers’ partners and children may have also often tended to eat alone, possibly because the worker was at work, asleep, did not want a meal or had already eaten. My findings tended to confirm studies presented in chapter 4, particularly Maasen (1982), Bunnage (1984), and Smith and Folkard (1993), who also concluded that some shiftworkers rarely ate with their families.

7.4 SUMMARY

Access to, and shiftworkers’ use of facilities to obtain food and drink at work, varied between the different industries studied. Shiftworkers in the health service and banking enjoyed a wide range of facilities to obtain food and drink in or near their place of work, whereas the facilities available to ambulance workers were more limited. Only around one-third of shiftworkers in my study used the facilities at work to obtain food, although there was variation between the different facilities used. Almost half (47%) regularly used drinks vending machines, and 37% regularly used the canteen at work. Over one-third (34%) of shiftworkers were dissatisfied with the facilities available at work to obtain food, with canteen opening hours on nightshifts a major source of dissatisfaction.

I also found that 87% of shiftworkers in my study had access to, and 34% regularly used, a microwave oven at work. This might have suggested that the pattern of communal eating in the works canteen was being replaced by a more individualised pattern of food provision and eating at work, in which workers took meal breaks at different times and prepared and ate their own food alone. This pattern seemed to be already established in the ambulance service.

Over half (58%) of my respondents were allowed 30 minutes or less for their main meal break.

Industries varied in allowing workers guaranteed, paid meal breaks. Workers in the health and ambulance services frequently took meal breaks late, or missed meals due to pressure of work.

Bank workers were more likely to be able to take longer, guaranteed breaks.

Shiftworkers' eating patterns on their last day at work were irregular and erratic. Some did not follow a regular eating pattern each day, but changed their pattern of eating when they changed shifts, with night shifts being the most disruptive, and most removed from the customary pattern in Britain of 3 - 4 meals per day. On days when they were not at work, more of my respondents ate the 3 or 4 meals or snacks regarded as ‘normal’ in Britain today than did so on their last work day.

Shiftworkers in my study were more likely to eat snacks at each eating occasion than meals.

Few had used the canteen at work for any meal on their last day at work. At the second eating

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occasion of the day, most shiftworkers ate at some other place at work, such as a snack bar, or at their desk. Home was the second favoured location for meals on the last day at work.

On days when they were not working, shiftworkers’ eating patterns tended to be more organised than on workdays, i.e. they tended to eat more often, and to eat more meals and fewer snacks.

Although most meals were eaten at home, they were more likely to eat out in a cafe or restaurant, and were also more likely to eat with other members of their family. However, it remained that a significant number of workers in my study ate alone on non-work days, and some indicated that they never ate with their family.

My findings in this, and the previous, chapter suggested that shiftworkers experienced certain tensions in their relationship to food and eating. While chapter 6 concluded that most shiftworkers thought food was important, for health and social reasons, for some, eating patterns and their enjoyment of eating were constrained by the conditions of their shiftwork.

These points are developed more in chapter 9 which explores the meaning of food and eating at work from the perspective of shiftworkers themselves.

The quantitative data presented in this chapter to describe the main features of shiftworkers' eating patterns on work and non-work days forms the background to the discussion of eating pattern typologies presented in the next chapter and the social organisation of food and eating in shiftworkers' households and at work in chapters 9 and 10. In the next chapter I seek to go beyond this description of shiftworkers’ eating patterns to explore the association between different aspects of their eating patterns and their social, work and family situations by developing a typology of eating patterns. In chapter 9, I explore the meaning of food and eating at work from the perspective of shiftworkers themselves.

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CHAPTER 8: A TYPOLOGY OF EATING PATTERNS