Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

For the second week of readings in my study of food policy, I was introduced to the historical origins and current developments in the food insecurity policy landscape. In reading Eisinger’s (1998) Towards an End to Hunger in America, as well as a number of academic articles from public health, nutrition, and social policy studies, I began to note the ways in which a scholar of communication (across sub-disciplines) could contribute in a multi-dimensional way to discussions of food insecurity. These readings were extremely insightful for me, so bear with the length. First, one particularly interesting point for discussion relates to merely defining food insecurity. Specifically, discursive conflicts have occurred in distinguishing hunger from food insecurity. While this debate began with the first political discussions of food insecurity in 1960s and 1970s, the settling of a clear definition of food insecurity and/or hunger is still yet to be achieved. The Committee on National Statist...

After doing quite a bit of scholarly reading to start off the first week of my independent study on food policy, I’m now starting to sense the complexity involved in tackling the problem of food insecurity. The problem is widespread and has a variety of health-related outcomes that pose an increasing threat to our health system. One particular statistic noted that for those who meet federal poverty guidelines, 35% identify as food insecure. With a variety of definitions of “food insecurity” floating around in the academic literature and policy venues, it is a bit difficult to know exactly what this means. A number of articles made reference to social capital and community connectedness as significant factors influencing food insecurity, and while I remember talking about this construct in my public health class and in prior blog postings, I also remember recognizing that operationalizing social capital can be extremely difficult. In similar light, I was pleased with the Larson & St...