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Accepted manuscript

Sorting it Out: Adolescent Refugee’s Perceptions of Food Upon Arrival to the US

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 December 2024

Rebecca E. Jones-Antwi Open the ORCID record for Rebecca E. Jones-Antwi [Opens in a new window] ,
Caroline Owens ,
Craig Hadley  and
Solveig A. Cunningham
Rebecca E. Jones-Antwi*
Affiliation:
Department of Public Health, Baylor University Department of Epidemiology, Emory University
Caroline Owens
Affiliation:
Department of QTM and Anthropology, Emory University Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University
Craig Hadley
Affiliation:
Department of QTM and Anthropology, Emory University
Solveig A. Cunningham
Affiliation:
Department of Epidemiology, Emory University Hubert Department of Global Health, Emory University
*
Corresponding Author: Dr. Rebecca E Jones-Antwi, Department of Public Health, Baylor University, One Bear Place #97343, Waco, TX 76798, Rebecca_jones-antwi@baylor.edu, (254) 710-4514
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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Objective:

To explore the meanings that newly-arrived refugee adolescents residing in the Southeast U.S. attribute to foods.

Design:

We used methods from cognitive anthropology to assess whether adolescents from different countries share a cultural model of eating behaviors.

Setting:

A school-based study in a community in the Southeastern U.S.

Participants:

Adolescents (10-17 years) who arrived in the US on a refugee visa in the previous year.

Results:

Adolescents showed consensus in grouping items and in identifying some foods as associated with adults and others with children. There was evidence of a shared model of eating practices across age, gender, and number of siblings. Adolescents who had lived in a refugee camp were significantly different in how they grouped items.

Conclusions:

Adolescents from 9 countries shared a model of eating behaviors; these patterns are consistent with rapid dietary acculturation within one year of arrival or with shared models held from pre-arrival. Our finding that adolescents who recently arrived in the U.S. generally agree about how foods relate to one another holds promise for generalized nutrition and dietary interventions across diverse adolescent groups.

Keywords

Fooddietacculturationcultural consensus analysisadolescentsrefugees
Type
Research Paper
Information
Public Health Nutrition , Accepted manuscript , pp. 1 - 27
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Authors 2024