Have you ever thought about how differently one family eats compared with another? Sociologist and ethnographer Priya Fielding-Singh, PhD, certainly has. Her book How the Other Half Eats offers a critical examination of nutritional inequality in America through the lens of social class, race, and health, intimately following four families across the income spectrum in an exploration of the meaning of food itself. The book reveals the thin tightrope that parents—mostly mothers—must walk to feed their children while maintaining their dignity and sense of worth, even as others judge and critique their food choices. In this excerpt, Fielding-Singh explores how children’s hunger and pickiness work to shape the food that makes its way onto families’ dinner plates.
For low-income moms, financial scarcity can give way to food scarcity. The ever-present threat of running out of money means living with the fear that food can also just as easily run out.
Comments
Post a Comment