Dr Suzanne Harkins Food , Obesity and Families: Practices in Irish Households with Young Children

2. Dr Suzanne Harkins Food, Obesity and Families: Practices in Irish Households with Young Children

3. Food, Obesity and Families: • Practices in Irish Households with Young Children • Context of research: • - Mid 2000s Irish Society • - National Taskforce on Obesity, formation and report (2005) • War on Obesity: Government Launches Action Plan to Tackle €370m-a-Year Health Crisis • By Claire O’Sullivan Irish Examiner 16th May 2005, Front Page • Obesity Task Force Warns of ‘Epidemic’: Report Urges Drastic Action • as an Estimated 300,000 Irish Children Found to be Overweight or Obese • By EithneDonnellanIrish Times 17th May 2005, Page 6 • How to Feed Your Kids: • Next Sunday STYLE Begins an Exclusive Two-Week Series Explaining the Basics with Food Guru Annabel Karmel • Sunday Times 27th May 2005, Page 10

4. RELATIONSHIP TO LITERATURE • Social problems approach to nutrition and body weight (Sobal and Maurer, 1995; 1999) • Social problems analysis: What level? • - Claimsmakers • - ‘Social problems work’: Everyday experiences used to characterise a social problem (Miller and Holstein, 1989; Holstein and Miller, 2003) • Research focus: • - Rational individualism  emphasis on context • - Multiple perspectives, including children • - Backett (1992): ‘everyday fabric of family interaction and prioritising’ • Which literature? • - Biomedical model defines obesity (kg/m2) •  Qualitative sociological literatures on the social construction of food, healthy eating and body weight practices in everyday life

5. THESIS AIMS • To explore family food practices, and potential differences in these between households, in a sample of middle-class Irish families with young children • To investigate lay understandings of body weight and obesity within family food practices and consider if and how they are related to medicalised understandings of body weight and obesity • To examine lay understandings of ‘healthy eating’, body weight and obesity in family food practices and investigate if and how they may be related •  Emphasis on ‘practices’ (Reckwitz, 2002)

6. METHODOLOGY • Theoretical underpinning: • - Social constructionism  contextual constructionism (Best, 1989; 1995; 2003) • General approach: Family focused • - 16 middle class families in a suburb of Dublin • - Perspectives of multiple family members: mothers, fathers, children • - Recruitment through local schools (children aged 6-8) • Research methods: • - Qualitatively-driven mixed methods approach • - Semi-structured interviews with multiple family members, teachers • - Structured food diaries • - Questionnaires for sampling purposes (self-reported BMI, social class) • Analysis: • - Grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006) • - Qualitative holistic profiling (Teddlie and Tashakkori, 2009)

7. GENERAL FINDINGS • Social organisation of family food practices • Structure of household food practices • Family food typology • The construction of ‘healthy eating’ in everyday family and school contexts • Healthy goodness/unhealthy badness • Food in schools: struggle between schools, parents and children • Lay understandings of obesity and relationships between obesity and food practices in household contexts • Models of obesity (Sobal, 1995) • Body weight practices in households

8. FINDING FOCUS 1: Family Food Typology • Tripartite family food typology: • 1. ‘Proper Mothers’: Duty • 2. ‘Modern Traditionals’: Chore • 3. ‘Food Enthusiaists’: Hobby • Contributions: • - Variation within middle-class family food practices, influenced by the role and meaning of food in family life • - Expands on how domestic labour arrangements are influenced by food knowledge and personal interest (DeVault, 1991)

9. FINDING FOCUS 2: Modelling Obesity • Modelling obesity (Sobal, 1995): Medical, moral and political models • Medical Model: • Dominant, but disparities between biomedical and lay definitions of obesity • - BMI vs visual evaluation techniques • - Alternative methods: visual, clothing sizes, activity based (walking, bending down) • - discrepancies between ‘ideal’ and ‘healthy’ weights • Moral Model: • - Complex and often conflicting moralities attached to body weight • - Obesity considered ‘bad’, but so were judgements about body weight • - Research difficulties: some children reluctant to discuss body weight for fear of getting in trouble • Political model: • - Largely absent • Contribution: • - Highlights difficulty of investigating ‘obesity’ using interviews • - Alternative models required to theorise lay understandings of obesity

10. FINDING FOCUS 3: Body Weight in Everyday Life • Interpreting body weight as a social problem: • - Gendered bodies • - Body weight vs body weight consciousness • - Social class: obesity reported as a characteristic of both poverty/lack of education and affluence • Body weight practices in families: • - Body weight constructed as a personal and highly risky issue • - Body weight talk with children should be positive reinforcement only • - Parents fearful of causing eating disorders in children, primary concern about emotional wellbeing (Stearns, 1999) • Contribution: • - Highlights importance of understanding body weight as embedded in everyday life where body weight is just one priority amongst many • - Highlights need for resources to aid parents of young children to address body weight issues (weight concerns, general body weight anxiety) which are culturally specific

11. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS • Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Research Scholarship Programme • Contact: • Dr Suzanne Harkins • suzanne.harkins@ucd.ie • IRCHSS Postdoctoral Fellow