A Capabilities Approach to Food Choices

Abstract

I question the notion of food choice and consider how much food choice someone living on low income actually has. In my fieldwork, it became clear that food choices, and hence one's nutritional and health state, cannot be viewed in separation from the participants' individual stories and the complexities of their lives. Daily routines, financial situation, and food accessibility have an impact on people's food choices. In realising this, I found Amartya Sen's (1979, 1985) capabilities approach useful, which moves beyond food entitlements. More specifically, a health capabilities approach as introduced by Venkatapuram (2007, 2011) and the association made between health and capabilities by others (e.g. Ruger Yale Joural Law Humanities 18 (2): 3, 2003) views health as the combination of the influence of socio-economic structures, as well as personal agency resulting in choices. I present the main learnings from viewing Foodways and Futures through the 'capabilities lens' and thus view food choices as the combination of the complex interrelations between socio-economic structures and agency. The Foodways and Futures project (2013–2016), as part of the BPathways to a Healthy Life^ theme at the University of Aberdeen, is an interdisciplinary project, combining education, sociology, public health and nutrition. An unpublished pilot study, conducted with young Food ethics people who had previously been homeless and were temporarily accommodated by a chari-table youth organisation in the North East of Scotland suggested that young people (16–25) experiencing homelessness and social deprivation were struggling to consume sufficient amounts of healthy foods according to UK nutritional guidelines (Perry 2013). The Foodways and Futures project was developed to investigate the lived experiences of the young people accommodated by the same organisation, to explore how, why and in what context they make their food choices. The study was based at the same charitable youth organisation, which accommodates up to 86 young formerly homeless people at seven housing sites across the North East. I combined action research and ethnography as mutually beneficial research approaches. Four different research methods were employed: participant observation at three of the housing sites, interviews, as well as a peer researcher group of young people and photovoice as more participatory approaches.