Sociological Study of the Relationship between Social Relation and Influence with the Consumption of Food away from Home (The Case of 15 Years Old and Over Citizens of Tabriz)

Consumption of foods away from home, corresponding to drastic changes at work organization and social life, beside of remarkable increase, has been a daily life challenge for many busy residents of today's large cities. Present study aimed at investigating the relationship between social relation and influence with the amount of food consumed away from home. To this end, distinction (Bourdiue), social influence (Kelman), and mechanisims of social relations (Pierce) have been utilized as the theoritial frameworks. According to these approaches, food-related experiences, as an important indicator for socio-economic and even identity status, have been increasingly acquired social meaning. The study has been done using the survey method among 15 years old and over individuals of Tabriz city, which 409 of them have been chosen by the use of stratified sampling technique, as the study sample.
According to bivariate analyses, "social relations" was not, and "social influence" was statistically correlated with quantity of food consumed away from home. Age (negatively), Sex (In favor of men), and residence place (in favor of well-off districs) are related to volume of food consumed away from home. According to regression analysis’ results, both of independent vrariables, including; social relations and social influence, have shown statistically positive and significant effects on dependent variable, after contoroling for background variables's effects such as; age, sex, and residence place. Five mentioned variables could explain around 21 percent of variations in dependent variable. Social influence’ effect was more important comparing to other effects in the final fitted regression model.