The Singaporean foodscape - Convenience, choice, entertainment, and sociality for young workers

Abstract

Singapore is famous for its diverse, affordable, and exciting foodscape. This paper focuses on understanding the multifaceted role that the Singaporean food environment plays in working young adults' lives, and how young adults interact with this environment to make food choices. Using a focused ethnographic approach, including 33 semi-structured interviews and participant-observation, we explore the ways in which busy working young adults interact with the foodscape. The food environment provides young adults, who eat out frequently, with highly accessible food options that cater to their budgets and palates. They often dine at hawker centres and similar food establishments with colleagues, friends and family. These establishments offer accessible, affordable, and appealing food. Overall, the foodscape provides a source of popular entertainment through the exploration of diverse cuisines and novel shared social experiences. Young adults are heavy users of social media to maintain social networks and to explore the food environment. Capitalizing on this, food marketing on social media targets this group with the promotion of food-related experiences. While it may not always promote healthy eating, the Singaporean foodscape offers convenience, choice, entertainment, and sociality. In the process, it facilitates the formation of cultural and national identity and the protection of mental well-being through the maintenance and development of relationships, and a sense of belonging.

Keywords: Commensality; Food culture; Food environment; Foodscapes; Health behaviour change; Health practices; Population health; Working hours; Young adults.