A Sociological Study On Rural Residents’Preference For Saltd Food

In recent years, various unreasonable eating behavior affected people’s physical health, becoming a social problem. Scientific research shows that the salted food may cause esophageal cancer, such as sowbelly, pickles. However, in most rural areas, salted food preference is a common phenomenon. Even though the salted food would be harmful to human body, most rural residents prefer salted food. Why? Due to the lack of academic attention to this phenomenon, there was no reasonable explanation on rural residents’ preference for salted food. Based on this fact, the writer did a research in X village in the northern of Jiangsu, and investigated the phenomenon of local residents’preference for salted food through questionnaire investigations and interviews. Then according to the results of the investigation, the writer analyzed the intrinsic logic behavior of preference. Meanwhile, the writer explored what exposes preference for salted and causes health risk, and analyzed rural residents’choice when they would face this kind of risk.By investigating on the subjective attitude of the preference for salted, frequency and quantities of salted food consumption, and rural residents’cognition of salted preferences, the results showed that the rural residents preferred salted. Three factors influenced local residents’behayior: the first, the salted is a kind of eating customs, it became part of residents’daily life, but it also played an important role in maintaining self-identity; the second, existing resources and lifestyle in the rural made the salted satisfying utility maximizing. The third, the rural residents’risk perception stayed in the situation of external risk. They didn’t realize the potential risk of preference for salted because of poor education and health knowledge. So, they believed salted preferences are safe.However, China is in the trend of modernity, reflective characteristics have rather close relationships with the daily life. People’s diet doesn’t follow the traditional custom completely, but obey scientific principles based on their trust in science and experts. In this situation, the scientific research reveals that salted are harmful to human health. They will become health risks. So, rural residents need to choose whether eating salted or not. Facing the health risks, they would show up three types:Traditional type, Transitional one and Modern one.In the transitional period, the scientific knowledge influences rural residents’ production and life style. It also exposes the potential risks of some traditional custom, but traditional custom and culture still play an important role in people’s daily life. Therefore, the salted preference will not disappear in a short time. Nevertheless, it’s a truth that salted food can’t accord to the standards of healthy diet. Healthy diet is the inevitable trend of the development of human beings. We need time to change the way of traditional customs. During this period, we should raise the awareness of the healthy life, deploy market resources reasonable, increase rural residents’incomes, improve people’s life, and finally achieve the goal of construction of public-health-society.