(Refugee and Diversity Projects) > Health > Diet, Food and Health Concept Map
A MONTAGNARD-CENTRIC APPROACH TO DIET AND HEALTH
I trained a Montagnard women’s lay community health team to assist UNCG researchers contact families, schedule interviews and interpret. A survey about food insecurity required the team to understand the relationship of behaviors and lifestyle choices to health problems in their community.
THIS MAP CONTAINS TERMS I used and developed to explain the relationship of key concepts contained in a Food Insecurity survey. The map could have started at any point, but I started with the question the Montagnard women health team asked, “Am I fat?”, when they asked me how they could lose weight.
What worked? they asked. Diet tea? Brown rice? Weight pills?
Why did they wish to lose weight? I asked.
How do you know you’re fat to begin with? led to the concept of BMI, how to read a BMI chart and how to use a scale and how to measure yourself. Then these exercises were carried out in Betsy's MDA ESOL class the next day with community members and the women working side by side. The next set of questions from the women came the day after, asking if many people they tested seemed to have BMI numbers then why was there so much illness in the community, like high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, etc? At this point, they had arrived at the same place as Jigna Dharod, the researcher who assigned them to conduct the survey.
Now they could understand why the Food Insecurity survey asked community members about what they ate and when, where they shopped, and what did they eat in Vietnam. Fatness leads to all kinds of major diseases in Americans, but for the Montagnards it appears heavy salt is the culprit, along with far less physical exertion and exercise. For weeks we studied these questions, their meaning and how they related to their experience in Vietnam villages, in the jungle and here in the US. By looking at it from their viewpoint and walking their path towards understanding, I believe the women have a far stronger idea of the influence of diet on health than they would have had we kept to American health literature, explanations, and cultural ideas.
A MONTAGNARD-CENTRIC APPROACH TO DIET AND HEALTH
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Old version. Click to enlarge.
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Background
BMI chart. Click to enlarge
__________________________________________________________________I trained a Montagnard women’s lay community health team to assist UNCG researchers contact families, schedule interviews and interpret. A survey about food insecurity required the team to understand the relationship of behaviors and lifestyle choices to health problems in their community.
__________________________________________________________________
THIS MAP CONTAINS TERMS I used and developed to explain the relationship of key concepts contained in a Food Insecurity survey. The map could have started at any point, but I started with the question the Montagnard women health team asked, “Am I fat?”, when they asked me how they could lose weight.
What worked? they asked. Diet tea? Brown rice? Weight pills?
Why did they wish to lose weight? I asked.
How do you know you’re fat to begin with? led to the concept of BMI, how to read a BMI chart and how to use a scale and how to measure yourself. Then these exercises were carried out in Betsy's MDA ESOL class the next day with community members and the women working side by side. The next set of questions from the women came the day after, asking if many people they tested seemed to have BMI numbers then why was there so much illness in the community, like high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, etc? At this point, they had arrived at the same place as Jigna Dharod, the researcher who assigned them to conduct the survey.
Now they could understand why the Food Insecurity survey asked community members about what they ate and when, where they shopped, and what did they eat in Vietnam. Fatness leads to all kinds of major diseases in Americans, but for the Montagnards it appears heavy salt is the culprit, along with far less physical exertion and exercise. For weeks we studied these questions, their meaning and how they related to their experience in Vietnam villages, in the jungle and here in the US. By looking at it from their viewpoint and walking their path towards understanding, I believe the women have a far stronger idea of the influence of diet on health than they would have had we kept to American health literature, explanations, and cultural ideas.
__________________________________________________________________
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