Fast Food Farm, Golden Grove Rd, Gramercy, LA

Because of the symbolic importance of food in the construction of ethnic and personal identities, a study of how the children talk about food illuminates the process of blending elements from the immigrant culture with those of the US. In order to understand the changes they have experienced as immigrants, the research focuses on the ways in which they talk about the food they eat in the US and on the foods they ate in Colombia. 'The purpose of this dissertation research is to study the experience of adjustment of Colombian immigrant children to living in the US. These findings fill a substantive gap in our understanding of health promoting practices in low-income African American households, and provide direction for family, neighborhood, and institutional efforts to promote healthy child nutrition. Six promotional strategies, which included selective food availability, cooking techniques, creative meal preparation and presentation, positive role-modeling, teaching and instruction, and media reinforcement were used to enhance healthy nutritional patterns. Monitoring was used as the key restrictive strategy to counter children’s unhealthy eating practices. We identified multiple restrictive and promotional strategies that caregivers utilized in the face of limited family resources and the poor quality of the neighborhood food environment. Informed by a family strengths perspective that emphasizes agency, this exploratory study used qualitative data from twelve low-income African American caregivers to explore strategies that caregivers used to promote the nutritional health of their preschool-age children. Little research examines how families respond to the neighborhood food environment and family poverty barriers to children’s nutritional health.

Fast Food Farm, Golden Grove Rd, Gramercy, LA