Ecology of Food and Nutrition (EFN) promotes scholarly discussion and engagement on the holistic and cross-cultural dimensions of food and nutrition. Articles published in this journal focus on foods and food systems in terms of their utilization to satisfy human nutritional needs and improve health and well-being. The journal also publishes articles that examine how ecological, social, and cultural factors relate to food, food cultures, and nutrition. Only a handful of journals publish articles that explicitly address the intersections of food and nutrition, biology and culture, and policy and practice from a holistic and global perspective. It is this kind of scholarship that EFN seeks to promote. This issue of EFN includes seven articles representing studies conducted in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Brazil, India, and the United States. The articles in this issue of EFN focus on a range of topics, including motivational drivers for food selection, household food insecurity, food acculturation, and obesity.
The article by Kibr et al. reports the results of a study examining major motivational drivers of food choices in a sample of randomly selected lactating women aged 15–49 years from Debrebirhan Town, Ethiopia. The authors used face-to-face interviews for data collection using a questionnaire with both structured and semi-structured questions. The authors report that religion, cost of the food, and the convenience of preparation were the strongest drivers of food choices among the sample women. The nutritional content or nutritive value of the food did not emerge as a strong driver of food choices. Based on the results of their study, the authors recommend implementing effective nutrition education and health promotion programs that focus on educating lactating women on the nutritive value of the foods. Such programs should take into consideration socio-demographic and economic barriers (e.g., food affordability) to food choices.
The article by Bocher and colleagues reports the results of an assessment study of the impact of a market-oriented gender-sensitive agriculture-health project on food consumption and food security in the households of sweet potato farmers in Rwanda. The authors use gender-disaggregated data and innovative econometric techniques to assess the impact of the intervention project. The authors conclude that women-headed households benefitted more by participating in the intervention project than men-headed households. The authors discuss these results in the context of the importance of gender as an important determinant of household food security and as a key variable in market-oriented agriculture-sensitive interventions to improve household food security.
Lopez-Pulido and colleagues report the results of an evaluative study examining the relationship between obesity and a range of variables, including eating habits, depressive symptomatology, and interleukin-8 and cortisol. The authors use a descriptive cross-sectional study design for data collection on a sample of 232 university students studying at the University of Guadalajara, Mexico. The results of this cross-sectional study suggest that high levels of adiposity are related to changes in the concentrations of interleukin-8 and eating habits. The authors discuss these results in the context of the increase in morbidity and mortality as a result of the global pandemic of obesity.
The article by Jacob and colleagues focuses on ethnonutrition – a study of diets in the context of food systems across cultures. The article describes Rapid Ethnonutrition Assessment (REA) – a method used for collecting ethnonutrition data to design culturally appropriate dietary interventions or assessments. The article reports the results of a study that uses REA for dietary assessment in a rural community in northeastern Brazil. The authors strongly advocate for the use of the REA as a tool that offers a broad and holistic view to researchers studying food and nutrition in communities.
The article by Joshi and Raghuvanshi reports the results of a study assessing the level of household food security in communities living in the rural-hilly areas of Uttarakhand – a state in north India. The authors used a cross-sectional, interview-administered survey among 155 households to collect household-specific information and adopted the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale to calculate the level of food security in each household. The authors report that nearly half of the surveyed households were “moderately” food insecure and nearly one-third of the households were “mildly” food insecure. The authors conclude by making specific actionable recommendations to address household food insecurity in this region based on local ecology, farming practices, and food preferences.
The article by Jeyakumar and colleagues focuses on infant and child feeding practices in India. The article reports the results of a cross-sectional study of mother-child dyads (N = 1443) to examine the impact of socio-economic characteristics on breastfeeding practices. The results suggest that nearly half of the sample women engaged in an early initiation of breastfeeding. While a Cesarean delivery decreased the odds of early initiation, an institutional delivery increased the odds of early initiation of breastfeeding. Based on their results, the authors make specific recommendations to improve child feeding practices in low income communities.
Finally, the article by Sastre and Haldeman focuses on dietary acculturation among migrant and refugee adolescents. It reports the results of a study examining food selection factors and the influence of household food selection by newcomer immigrant and refugee adolescents. The authors used a cross-sectional study design to collect data in a school for newly relocated youth in an urban city in North Carolina, U.S.A. The sample included adolescents who spoke English, Spanish, Arabic, French, Vietnamese, and Burmese. Based on the results of the study, the authors discuss the influence of the refugee camp experience, body mass index (BMI), gender, and ethnicity on the process of dietary acculturation among adolescents.