Towards understanding the new food environment for refugees from the Horn of Africa in Australia.
The study explored how African migrant communities living in North-West Melbourne, Australia, conceptualise and interpret the Australian food system from an intergenerational perspective and how this impacts on their attitudes and beliefs about food in Australia. Using a qualitative approach that involved 15 adolescents and 25 parents, the study found significant intergenerational differences in four themes that characterised their new food environment: (1) an abundance of cheap and readily available processed and packaged foods, (2) nutrition messages that are complex to gauge due to poor literacy levels, (3) promotion of a slim body size, which contradicts pre-existing cultural values surrounding body shapes and (4) Australian food perceived as being full of harmful chemicals. In order to develop effective culturally competent obesity prevention interventions in this sub-population, a multigenerational approach is needed.
Wilson
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A
School of Health and Social Development, Faculty of Health, Medicine, Nursing and Behavioural Sciences, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. alyce.n.wilson@gmail.com
Renzaho
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AM
McCabe
M
M
Swinburn
B
B
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017954:Africa South of the Sahara / Q000208:ethnology; D001294:Attitude to Health / Q000208:ethnology*; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000208:ethnology*; D005260:Female; D005523:Food Supply; D057220:Health Literacy; D006801:Humans; D016901:Intergenerational Relations; D008297:Male; D012036:Refugees / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014739:Victoria / Q000453:epidemiology; D015430:Weight Gain