{"id":2649,"date":"2021-11-09T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-09T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/?p=2649"},"modified":"2021-12-08T16:38:02","modified_gmt":"2021-12-08T22:38:02","slug":"considering-the-symbolic-meanings-of-food-how-the-other-half-eats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/2021\/11\/09\/considering-the-symbolic-meanings-of-food-how-the-other-half-eats\/","title":{"rendered":"Considering the symbolic meanings of food: How the Other Half Eats"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\r\nCover of book\r\n\r\n

The pandemic has shined a spotlight on food and inequality in the United States. Over the past eighteen months, we\u2019ve witnessed alarming upticks in hunger, the widening of food insecurity disparities, and sweeping efforts by the federal government to address the impacts of economic hardship on families\u2019 diets and nutrition.<\/p>\r\n

But nutritional inequality was a pressing problem long before the pandemic. The nutritional gap<\/a> between rich and poor in the U.S. has existed for decades and continues to grow: while the rich continue to make gains nutritionally, the diets of lower income families have largely stagnated.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Yet despite the widespread knowledge that nutritional inequality is a crisis helping to fuel broader health disparities, we still lack an in-depth understanding of this inequality\u2019s root causes. Indeed, the most commonly-held culprit for dietary disparities, food deserts, have disappointingly turned out to be hardly any culprit at all.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

For the past decade, the food desert narrative has held that families living in food deserts, or low-income neighborhoods with a dearth of supermarkets, don\u2019t have access to healthy foods (like fruits and vegetables), and are left with no choice but to eat the less healthy foods they can<\/em> access.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But mounting research<\/a> on food access and food deserts actually tell a dramatically different story. This growing body of work suggests that differences in food access account for just 10 percent<\/em> of the nutritional gap between rich and poor.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

If food access disparities don\u2019t drive nutritional inequality, then what does?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This question is at the heart of my new book, How the Other Half Eats<\/em><\/a>. <\/em>The book draws on years of field research I conducted with families across income levels, including one hundred sixty interviews with parents and kids, and hundreds of hours of observations of families\u2019 dietary practices.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

What I learned through my time with families was that the causes of nutritional inequality go far beyond food access. It isn\u2019t just access to healthy food that shapes families\u2019 diets, but also food\u2019s meanings <\/em>to families.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In my book, I show how and why food means something dramatically different to mothers raising their children in poverty compared to those doing the same in affluent contexts. These different \u2013 and generally overlooked \u2013 meanings are central to the story of why families with diverging resources eat so differently.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Across the income spectrum, the mothers I met understood that junk food was not an ideal choice for kids. Most moms would have preferred their kids skip the soda and Cheetos. But I also \u00a0observed that mothers\u2019 feeding practices and food choices for their children weren\u2019t solely based on nutritional value. Rather, these choices often related far more to food\u2019s symbolic <\/em>value to mothers.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

For low-income mothers raising their children in poverty, ongoing financial scarcity often meant having to say no<\/em> to a lot of children\u2019s food requests: no to new clothes, water park tickets, and family vacations. Within this context of no, food was often one of the few things that low-income moms could actually say yes<\/em> to their kids about in daily life. There was generally always a dollar lying around that could be put toward a can of Coke or a Twix bar. Saying yes offered low-income moms a chance to offer love and affection to their children \u2013 to show their kids they were heard and cared about, and that they would work to honor their preferences. Saying yes, in turn, helped bolster low-income moms\u2019 sense of worth; it offered them proof, in a world that so often cast them as irresponsible caregivers, that they were still good moms.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In contrast, I observed higher-income moms saying no<\/em> far more often to their kids\u2019 junk food requests. These denials were similarly rooted in food\u2019s symbolic meaning to moms. Raising kids in affluent contexts meant that these mothers often had more things that they could say yes to their kids about on a daily basis, whether it was a new pair of jeans or a replacement for a shattered phone screen. For these mothers, because there was so much to say yes to, saying no was far less emotionally distressing. What\u2019s more, as much as saying yes reflected low-income moms\u2019 commitments to doing right by their kids, the same was true for their more affluent counterparts. Saying no was how these moms showed themselves and others that they were committed to their children\u2019s diets and health \u2013 that they were good moms.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Our conversations about \u2013 and proposed solutions \u2013 nutritional inequality in this country need to take these symbolic meanings into account.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Indeed, my research suggests that it\u2019s time to move beyond conversations narrowly focused on food access. Certainly, ensuring that every family has geographic and financial access to healthy food is key to solving this crisis. But we should consider access a necessary but insufficient <\/em>prerequisite to nutritional equity, rather than the entire solution.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Instead, to close the dietary gap, can we take collective steps to help shift the meaning of food to low-income families? How can we take societal responsibility to make it so that a bag of Cheetos isn\u2019t one of the only things a mom can offer her child amidst a backdrop of scarcity?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Perhaps unsurprisingly, one solution lies in addressing poverty itself. Elevating families out of poverty \u2013 and providing them with financial security and stability \u2013 can help reduce the symbolic weight of kids\u2019 junk food requests.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Indeed, the pandemic has highlighted that we have the power to boost families\u2019 economically. Over the past year, we\u2019ve seen how increases in SNAP and unemployment benefits and the wide distribution of child tax credits and stimulus checks have significantly improved families\u2019 economic conditions \u2013 even lifted millions of families out of poverty. The resources are there to solve nutritional inequality; now it\u2019s up to us to use them. The health and well-being of American families depends on it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"<\/a>\r\n
Dr. Priya Fielding-Singh<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Priya Fielding-Singh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Consumer Studies at the University of Utah, where she researches, teaches, and writes about families, health, and inequality in America. Her new book, <\/em>How the Other Half Eats<\/em><\/a>, will be published November 16th<\/sup>. You can find her on Twitter at @priyafsingh.<\/em><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cover of book The pandemic has shined a spotlight on food and inequality in the United States. Over the past eighteen months, we\u2019ve witnessed alarming upticks in hunger, the widening of food insecurity disparities, and sweeping efforts by the federal government to address the impacts of economic hardship on families\u2019 diets and nutrition. But nutritional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2649"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2705,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649\/revisions\/2705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}