Last month, an LA Times article by Priya Fielding-Singh reported on the author’s research around nutritional disparities in the United States, which found that differences in children’s dietary habits aren’t just attributable to “food deserts” or access to fresh foods. Instead, they are intimately related to self-esteem, to pleasure, and to the persistent and pervasive stresses of living in poverty.
Junk food purchases not only brought smiles to kids' faces, but also gave parents something equally vital: a sense of worth and competence as parents in an environment where those feelings were constantly jeopardized.
To wealthy parents, kids' food requests meant something entirely different. Raising their kids in affluent environment, wealthy parents were regularly able to meet most of their children's material needs and wants. Wealthy parents could almost always say "yes," whether it was to the latest iPhone or a college education.
With an abundance of opportunities to honor their kids' desires, high-income parents could more readily stomach saying "no" to requests for junk food. Doing so wasn't always easy, but it also wasn't nearly as distressing for wealthy parents as for poor ones.
For me, as a great lover of food and as the parent of a toddler, this isn’t a bit surprising. I’ve been fortunate enough to eat a lot of fancy food in a lot of fancy places, and I’m a real fan of meals built around seasonal, local vegetables. This winter I signed up for a CSA as a mood booster during the doldrums of February, because it genuinely made me happy to envision holding a large tote bag full of assorted leafy greens in a few months’ time.
But the best meal I ever had was a lukewarm cheeseburger, French fries, and chocolate shake, which I devoured from a hospital bed after 24 hours of labor as I watched my husband hold our newborn son. If the nurse had suggested I eat a wholesome grain bowl and cold-pressed juice instead, I would have done my level best to throttle her.
It’s important to me that my son eats a healthy diet, and I put a great deal of energy into cooking and serving him a range of wholesome foods. But on nights when we’re rushed and stressed, when my husband is out of town and I’m pregnant and exhausted, it is a great relief to serve him boxed macaroni and cheese and a bowl of fruit for dessert, knowing that he will eat contentedly and the meal won’t be a battle.
Food isn’t just fuel. It’s culture and comfort and communication and distraction and habit and belonging and affection, all wrapped up in carbohydrates and slicked with butter. We’ll never change our eating habits—or anyone else’s—if we pretend otherwise.