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| Croydon University Hospital formerly Mayday or 'May-die' |
PATIENTS had a meagre £1.73 spent, on average, on every meal they were given while recovering in Croydon University Hospital last year – the lowest spending per head of hospitals used by Croydon residents.Other nearby hospitals spend double amount that on their patient meals. Croydon Health Services NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, has responded by increasing spending this year to £5.96 a day – an average of £1.99 per meal.
Figures released last week show the hospital's trust forked out an average of £5.18 a day for three meals and drink for each patient during 2010/11.
David Bell, author of Consuming Geographies: We Are Where We Eat, and senior lecturer in critical human geography at the University of Leeds agrees differences are cultural and nurtured, not geneticBishop-Weston sees gender differences less in how people eat, more in how they think about their diets.
"Women have more emotional attachments to food - due to media pressure they attach guilt to carbs and saturated fats, and often feel a responsibility to eat healthily in a way that men don't," she says.
"Interestingly, though, I see a trend towards 'effort' that spans and unites the sexes. People are becoming more receptive to things that take longer. People are looking for an identity with their food. People are buying breadmakers. As everybody's lives are getting more stressful we feel worse, and we need more nutrients. So both men and women are getting scared into eating well."
