Scruton argues that "conservatism and conservation" are two aspects of a single policy of husbanding resources, including social capital embodied in laws, customs, and institutions, and material capital of the environment (Scruton 2007).
Our findings indicate that cultural capital was a stronger predictor than material capital of disparities in consumption of fruit and vegetables and in the regular eating of breakfast and dinner, and it was the only significant predictor of consumption of sweets and sugared soft drinks among young people in Norway.
But it can draw on centuries of historical and material capital to put on a decent show with little fresh outlay.
Building upon Coleman's Social Theory [ 4], Oakes and Rossi [ 3] suggest that SES should be assessed through measures of material capital including measures of income and housing status [ 3], measures of human capital including measures of education and occupation [ 3] and measures of beneficial social connections such as measures of marital status and two parents rather than a single parent [ 1].
In terms of material capital, even though our method of deriving the composite SES variable was intended to reduce the age bias, age was still the strongest confounder of the relationship between SES and stopping smoking.
Our aim was to evaluate the predictive values of material capital (family affluence) and cultural capital as determinants of eating habits among adolescents in Norway.
However, we believe that this broad indicator might be useful in migrant studies, since it is well documented that the distribution of material, capital, human and other key resources is an important predictor of a population's average levels of health, income and education (which are the three dimensions of the HDI) [ 89].
These points may explain our finding that the FAS, representing material capital, is an important predictor of consumption of fruit and vegetables but not of sweets and soft drinks, while number of books, representing cultural capital, is the strongest predictor of food preferences and meal frequency.
The language of material capital is used: "price", "bid", and "currency", but these terms belie a unit of account that "crosses the line between material and symbolic".
The analyses support the argument that cultural capital and material capital are distinct dimensions of SES that work through different mechanisms to make unique and separate contributions to health.
There is no single measure of SES [ 1] but SES embodies an array of resources: material capital such as money and goods, human capital such as skills, knowledge, prestige or power, and social capital beneficial social connections [ 2– 4].
