Consumption is an embodied practice. It is shaped by habits, desires, tastes, and an embodied know-how that informs both selection and use of items purchased. To consume is to physically do something: to purchase or use what one has purchased. And in some cases, most obviously regarding food and drink, it involves taking foreign objects and substances into one's own body.

Sociological work on and interest in embodiment has a long history that can be traced back to the origin of the discipline. However, the contemporary concern for embodiment within the discipline can be dated to the mid-1980s. Bryan Turner's Body and Society was an early landmark study in what has proved to be a growth area for social research. This growth was consolidated, in the ...