This study aims to examine how food-delivery applications reshape household food practices in Qatar, focusing on family routines, health orientations, household budgeting and the redistribution of meal-related authority within families.
Qualitative descriptive study based on semi-structured interviews with 29 Qatari mothers conducted between September 2024 and February 2025. Interviews were conducted in Arabic, transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically within a constructivist–interpretivist paradigm using reflexive thematic analysis.
App use is routinised and driven mainly by convenience, time scarcity and culinary variety. Participants described a redistribution of meal decisions, including who initiates orders, what is purchased, when meals occur and how money is spent, across family members and platform affordances (e.g. promotions, recommendations and frictionless payment). We conceptualise this pattern as decentralised nutritional authority, expressed across five interrelated domains: social (fragmented shared meals and intra-household tensions), cultural (erosion and selective adaptation of home-cooking norms), educational (children’s purchasing autonomy and “learning” platform consumption), health (perceived weight gain, lethargy and disrupted routines) and economic (impulsive spending, weakened oversight, and frequent use of discounts).
Several limitations should be considered when interpreting the findings: (1) The findings should therefore be interpreted as a focused account of maternal perspectives on platform-mediated household food governance in this context rather than as an equally representative account of all household actors. (2) Self-reported accounts may be subject to social desirability and recall biases, particularly around sensitive topics such as family conflict and financial strain. (3) As a qualitative study, we did not quantify dietary intake or objectively measure health outcomes, nor did we analyse platform-recorded transaction data; thus, links between app use and nutritional or economic indicators remain inferential. Theoretical implication: Our findings extend critical-theoretical analyses of consumer culture and platform capitalism by showing that app-enabled convenience can commodify hospitality and maternal stewardship while redistributing household food governance through decentralised nutritional authority (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1944/2002; Marcuse, 1964/1991). In platform terms, the findings identify a household-level mechanism through which platform architectures and incentives shape domestic oversight and consumption patterns beyond the point of purchase (Fuchs, 2014; Srnicek, 2017). Food-delivery platforms do not simply facilitate individual choice; they also reorganise who initiates food purchases, whose preferences prevail and how nutritional and financial oversight is exercised within family life. Platform-capitalism perspectives (Fuchs, 2014; Srnicek, 2017) are also enriched by evidence that algorithmic delivery fees and promotional strategies intensify economic pressure and shape consumption habits at the household level, particularly when ordering authority is distributed across multiple actors and normalised through frictionless app design.
Participants described reduced parental oversight over order timing, meal selection and discretionary spending when ordering agency is distributed across family members and facilitated by frictionless platform interfaces; we therefore recommend design features that support household coordination, such as family-mode approval settings, shared spending dashboards and optional ordering windows aligned with agreed meal times. Participants also linked late-night ordering, calorie-dense default options and frequent promotions to routine disruption and perceived health risks; accordingly, platforms and public health actors could implement meal-timing prompts, tailored nutrition cues and digital literacy resources designed for family decision-making rather than individualised messaging. Finally, accounts of eroding home-cooking rhythms and hospitality routines suggest value in community- and school-linked initiatives, such as digital budgeting workshops and co-cooking programmes, that rebuild skills and shared meals while acknowledging time scarcity. These recommendations have policy relevance within Qatar’s digital transformation and health priorities and suggest that interventions should address app-based food procurement as a household governance issue rather than only as an individual consumer-choice problem.
Our findings extend critical-theoretical analyses of consumer culture and platform capitalism by showing that app-enabled convenience can commodify hospitality and maternal stewardship while redistributing household food governance through decentralised nutritional authority (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1944/2002; Marcuse, 1964/1991). In platform terms, the findings identify a household-level mechanism through which platform architectures and incentives shape domestic oversight and consumption patterns beyond the point of purchase (Fuchs, 2014; Srnicek, 2017). Food-delivery platforms do not simply facilitate individual choice; they also reorganise who initiates food purchases, whose preferences prevail, and how nutritional and financial oversight are exercised within family life. Platform-capitalism perspectives (Fuchs, 2014; Srnicek, 2017) are also enriched by evidence that algorithmic delivery fees and promotional strategies intensify economic pressure and shape consumption habits at the household level, particularly when ordering authority is distributed across multiple actors and normalised through frictionless app design. Participants described reduced parental oversight over order timing, meal selection, and discretionary spending when ordering agency is distributed across family members and facilitated by frictionless platform interfaces; we therefore recommend design features that support household coordination, such as family-mode approval settings, shared spending dashboards and optional ordering windows aligned with agreed meal times. Participants also linked late-night ordering, calorie-dense default options and frequent promotions to routine disruption and perceived health risks; accordingly, platforms and public health actors could implement meal-timing prompts, tailored nutrition cues and digital literacy resources designed for family decision-making rather than individualised messaging. Finally, accounts of eroding home-cooking rhythms and hospitality routines suggest value in community- and school-linked initiatives, such as digital budgeting workshops and co-cooking programmes, that rebuild skills and shared meals while acknowledging time scarcity. These recommendations have policy relevance within Qatar’s digital transformation and health priorities and suggest that interventions should address app-based food procurement as a household governance issue rather than only as an individual consumer-choice problem.
The study offers an inductively developed conceptual contribution to platformised consumption in Gulf family life by articulating decentralised nutritional authority as a household-level platform effect that reconfigures maternal agency, domestic labour and commensality. It also identifies practical levers for platforms and public-health stakeholders (e.g. shared-cart governance, spending controls, transparency dashboards and culturally appropriate health nudges) to reduce unintended economic and health harms while preserving convenience.
