Cooking for One
Cooking, while still a somewhat gendered task, has become an everyday activity that everyone can undertake, have fun with, and get tired of. Especially for those who live alone, cooking for one has become a common practice. According to the latest statistics from the government agency, the number of people living alone has increased in 2021, with almost 30% of all U.S. households consisting of individuals, including 37 million adults (U.S. Census Bureau, 2021). When it comes to cooking, people often rely on various sources of information, such as when they crave a new recipe or are proud of what they cook and expect to share it online. In this study, we bring together Sociology, Human Development and Family Studies, Human Nutrition, and Information Science scholarship to explore cooking and eating habits of individuals living alone. This ongoing mixed-method research involves demographic surveys, individual interviews, food diaries, and photo-elicitation. So far, the team has recruited more than 80 participants, including people from different backgrounds and age groups living in urban and suburban areas. We aim to achieve four main goals:
- Understand how living alone affects food practices and meanings within households
- Assess the implications for health
- Determine how life stages and social inequality mediate these effects
- Gain a better understanding of the role food plays in social relationships and connectedness.
My role
I took part in the Cooking for One project alongside Drs. Merin Oleschuk and Melissa Ocepek during my time as a doctoral student at the University of Illinois. From the outset, I was heavily involved in the study and remained so until I completed my doctoral degree. As a graduate research assistant, my primary duties included recruiting participants, overseeing the completion of demographic surveys, conducting interviews, monitoring food diaries, and facilitating photo elicitation exercises. I also played a part in data analysis, working alongside my fellow research assistants to carry out qualitative coding on Dedoose and support the writing process. Even after I left the project, I stayed in touch with my colleagues, keeping up to date with the latest progress and offering feedback if necessary.
Featured skills
- Interviewing
- Observation
- Qualitative Analysis
- Presentation
- Publication Writing
- Critical Thinking
- Collaborative Problem Solving
- Public Communication
Software
- Dedoose
- Microsoft Office Suite
- Canva
- Zoom
Take a whole look at the slides of our lighting talk at the SIG-USE Research Symposium 2022 here.
Have a detailed look at our slides designed for the paper presentation at CAIS 2023 here.
Publications
- Cheng, S., Lee, L., Ocepek, M., & Oleschuk, M. (2023). “I’m bored, and I want something new!”: Affective information acquisition in everyday culinary practices. 2023 Proceedings of the Annual Conference of CAIS / Actes du congrès annuel de l'ACSI.
- Cheng, S., Lee, L., Ocepek, M., & Oleschuk, M. (2023). Single-person households food information-seeking. Information Matters, 3(2). Available at informationmatters.org/2023/02/single-person-households-food-information-seeking/
- Cheng, S., Lee, L., Ocepek, M., & Oleschuk, M. (2022). Studying food-related information seeking behavior of people living alone. Lighting talk presented at the SIG-USE Research Symposium 2022, Virtual Event, USA.