The first room was both the kitchen and the living room with the counter tops covered in spice jars, a dish towel, and other various items. The floors were littered with shoes and jackets, as if they had been thrown off as soon as they had walked through the door out of convenience. As she cleared off a spot on the kitchen table that was crowded with stacks of papers and used glasses, I pulled away two chairs from the TV area to bring over. Throughout the interview, the recurring theme of health emerged. Although it appeared in different forms, health was so closely tied to her perceptions of and experiences with food. Within health, the participant’s physical and emotional relationships translated into how she viewed and interacted with the neighborhood she lives in. Evidently, the way she sees food is enveloped by the role health plays in her life. With health being characterized by her access to and exploration of food, her everyday practices and how they are affected by her emotions, as well as how her community interacts with food.
Access & …show more content…
“Eating habits are pretty standard because I work… I have just a normal breakfast. I’ll probably have some fruit mid-morning, lunch, then dinner. I try not to snack in the evenings, just cause I’m trying to be healthy and I’m trying to loose weight. But yeah, I mean, it’s just because I work why I eat the way I do.” She references her job as the main reason for her routine. Her responses give more insight when she begins to discuss how her eating habits change when she’s relaxed in comparison to how she eats on work days. As she says, “when I don’t have set tasks or things to do in the day, I tend to snack. When I’m at home, ya know, I’ve got cake, treats, and stuff.” The contrast of her practices establishes that her reasons for her eating habits may have further guidance than just wanting to be healthy and having access to fresh foods. Her job plays a large role in her habits on a surface level but her emotions are the root reasons for them. Individuals are more likely to eat impulsively when experiencing negative emotions as a way to cope and manage what they are feeling. (Macht and Simons, 2000) She prefers to cook homemade meals for her and her boyfriend but the role of her work continues to affect her habits when her emotions change her preference from home-cooked to take-away. Thus, her emotional state