Feeding the Canadian Immigrant Family: an intersectional approach to meal preparation among immigrant families in Ontario

ABSTRACT

In light of the positive association between home-cooked meals and healthier diets, many recent health promotion strategies have encouraged the public to cook more often at home. However, class, race/ethnicity, and gender inequalities often intersect in shaping food practices and also impact who takes on the work involved in “feeding the family”. There are reasons to believe that challenges in healthy eating may be exacerbated among immigrants. Building on the prior research conducted in this area, this article draws on in-depth qualitative interviews with 23 married immigrant men and women to explore the social relations and social practices involved in feeding the immigrant family. By adopting an intersectional life course approach, we show how gender, immigrant status, race/ethnicity and economic hardship during integration processes all intersect to shape family decision making around meal preparation and eating practices. Our findings highlight that migration is a notable turning point that may influence the division of labor within immigrant families, and how the social and policy context of the host country shapes who takes primary responsibility for food work.

KEYWORDS:

• Immigrant families
• healthy eating
• feeding practices
• dietary acculturation
• post-migration dietary changes
• gender inequalities
• intersectional life course approach

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all the participants who invested their valuable time to be interviewed for this research. The authors also sincerely thank Sinikka Elliott, Mark Cleveland, Andrea Willson, Wolfgang Lehmann, Kate Choi and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback on the earlier versions of the manuscript. We want to extend our sincere appreciation to Megan Elias (editor) as well. This project was supported by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The ethnocultural diversity of the immigrant population in Canada provides a valuable context. Whereas earlier immigrants to Canada were primarily from European countries, Canada has experienced dramatic changes in the racial/ethnic composition of its incoming immigrants, with the majority of recent immigrants coming from non-Western countries (Statistics Canada 2017). The province of Ontario is known as one of the top destinations for immigrants (Queen’s Printer for Ontario 2019).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [752-2017-2193].

Notes on contributors

Eugena Kwon

Eugena Kwon is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Saint Mary’s University (SMU), Halifax, Canada. As a mixed-method scholar, one of her research interests is focused on how the challenges and barriers to immigrant integration (both economic and social/cultural) influence the health behavior of immigrants and international students. She has a broad research interest in population health and well-being, sociology of work, and immigrant integration.

Tracey L. Adams

Tracey L. Adams is a Professor of the Department of Sociology at the Western University, Ontario, Canada. She specializes in the sociology of work, professions, and intersectional inequalities. She has also published on international differences in professional regulation, and is currently studying the changing nature of professional work, and the significance of gender to professional work, in Canada and other nations.