Exploring the Lives of Vulnerable Young People in Relation to Their Food Choices and Practices

Y

12

Eating Habits; At Risk Persons; Low Income Groups; Socioeconomic Influences; Food; Nutrition; Youth; Poverty; Public Health; Qualitative Research; Semi Structured Interviews; Action Research; Participant Observation; Focus Groups; Health Behavior; Family Environment; Life Style; Homeless People; Costs; Adolescents; Foreign Countries; Hunger

1925-0746

The interdisciplinary "Foodways and Futures" project (2013-2016) is based on a pilot study which found no improvement in the nutritional state of formerly homeless young people (16-25), now in supported accommodation at a charitable youth organization. Because a healthy food intake during adolescence is important, and because young people with socioeconomic lower backgrounds face difficulties in maintaining a healthy diet (Beasley at al., 2005), I investigated how the young people themselves experience their relationship to food. In this paper I explore links between the lived experience before and during their stay with the organization of this vulnerable group, and their food choices and practices. The study illustrates the ways in which those choices and practices may appear nutritionally undesirable, but are nevertheless linked to the young people's search for ontological security and social connectedness, in their new living environment. In this, I draw on and extend Schlossberg's (1981) transition theory in order to better understand the rationales underlying an individual's subjective food choices.

As Provided

38

2017

EJ1157673