Thirteenth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Recent studies have indicated that 40% of populations in high-income and low-middle-income countries do not adhere to their national dietary guidelines. In Australia, < 2% of women attained the Australian Dietary Guidelines’ (2013) recommended intake of vegetables. This is startling considering the many diet-related non-communicable diseases faced by countries globally (e.g. cardiovascular diseases, type II diabetes, osteoporosis). Two decades of Public Health interventions focusing on obesity and malnutrition in Australia have met with mixed results, while ‘high risk’ categories have slowly become the ‘new normal’. One possible reason for this is the disconnect between dietary guidelines and the ‘messy’ contextualised social worlds that people inhabit. The ways that individuals and communities source, prepare, consume and learn about food are multiple and varied. This is not reflected adequately in current Public Health policy. Focusing on how people interact with and learn about food within communities, this research project draws on approximately 160 hours of ethnographic fieldwork over 5 months and interviews(n=12) with participants at a local community centre. Drawing conceptual inspiration from the fields of Food Pedagogies and Affect Theory, I use this case study to explore the roles of place, identity and memory in the exchange of food knowledge(s). I argue that an appreciation of how people find/create emplaced and affective meaning with food can provide critical new perspectives on how to tackle complex food-related issues. It can also give insight on how to make public health interventions more sustainable and relevant to the ‘messy’ lives of individuals and communities.