Review: How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America, by Priya Fielding-Singh

Abstract

Priya Fielding-Singh’s How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America asks why, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world and in a time of abundance, food outcomes are so abysmal. Why does the United States have such poor dietary indicators, poor nutrition, hunger, and food insecurity? To answer these questions, over which much ink has been spilt, Fielding-Singh draws on qualitative research—primarily interviews and observation—that she conducted with 160 families in California. She interviewed mothers about their families’ food practices, possibilities, and aspirations, and shadowed four families intensively to gain a better sense of their day-to-day lives and food practices. The author justifies her decision to focus on mothers in this research, as in the United States women are disproportionately tasked with feeding their families.The resulting book is well crafted and important. It is rich in ethnographic description and testimony that bring alive the voices and struggles of the women with whom she spoke as they struggle to feed their families. Contrary to its title, however, it is not really an untold story, but rather a skillful synthesis and retelling of a story quite familiar to those of us who study questions of food and inequality. Amidst the monograph’s multiple points and subplots, the author argues primarily that food practices and inequalities must be understood in terms of their relations to social inequalities and the structural forces that (re)produce them. The way we eat, and the way we feed others, in other words, has everything to do with forces that shape our aspirations and possibilities. Tempting as it is from a silver-bullet policy perspective to reduce food inequalities to simple variables—such as proximity to a grocery store or lack of awareness about what constitutes a “healthy” diet—the reality is much more complex. Thus, even though most of the women interviewed share similar ideas on what constitutes a healthy and adequate diet, and even for women with relatively easy access to grocery stores, their decisions, experiences, and attitudes around food vary significantly. Likewise, few are able to feed their families as they would like. If not simply a matter of education or proximity, how do food scholars make sense of divergent and unequal food practices?The book proposes multiple answers to this question. The least surprising is the economic factor. Poor women have fewer options in terms of what they can buy. Women who rely on food stamps or other forms of assistance are often even more constrained in terms of their purchasing options. To stretch thin budgets, women may rely on buying lower-cost nonperishable goods, or doing large shopping trips at the beginning of the month. Fresh fruits and vegetables become an impractical luxury in such contexts. Yet money alone does not explain different food purchasing practices, as women who work long hours or have multiple caregiving duties may lack the time or energy to prepare home-cooked meals. Moreover, children (guided by extensive marketing campaigns) are important actors in shaping household food practices. Fear of wasting food may lead mothers to serve picky eaters less healthy meals they know their children will eat. Or, when faced with children’s requests for unhealthy or prepared foods in grocery stores, mothers who are exhausted or who feel guilty for not being able to give their children more time or opportunities often give in to their requests to avoid conflict and to show love. Through such observations, Fielding-Singh demonstrates that food is never simply a matter of rationality or economics but has important symbolic and affective qualities. We use food to show love, and we use food to relate. Sometimes affection and conviviality take the form of a home-cooked meal, and other times the form of a Big Mac or a bag of Doritos.The different chapters of the book illustrate through compelling vignettes how social class, race, ethnicity, and gender all shape both how we eat and how we are judged for eating in ways that reproduce social inequalities. Yet the book is not simply about the way that underprivileged mothers navigate a hostile food environment. A key argument Fielding-Singh makes is that the ideology of intensive mothering, in which women are expected to devote vast amounts of time, energy, and planning to provide their children with optimal childhoods, sets all mothers up for failure. Even in the wealthiest families she observes, mothers believe they are feeding their children inadequately and there is room for improvement. They may feel guilty for not going that extra step. This feeling of never being good enough binds women from all backgrounds and is a product of a system in which individual mothers are made responsible for fighting against a predatory food industry, toxic food environments, and multiple structural forces that may constrain them.How the Other Half Eats is set up as a series of short chapters to illustrate these arguments, as well as others. The strength of the book is not in its sophisticated or innovative theoretical discussion, but rather in the clarity with which it articulates, illustrates, and synthesizes many arguments about the nature and reason for food inequalities with which we may be familiar. Highly readable and engaging, it is a book for a broad public rather than a narrow scholarly audience, yet it is grounded in rigorous research, with a deep grasp of academic literatures on food preferences, inequalities, and environments. As such, it would be a wonderful resource for teaching undergraduate students about the relationship between structural forces and food problems, or as a text to discuss qualitative research methods. How the Other Half Eats illustrates and illuminates social problems, as only good qualitative sociology can do. One can only hope that policymakers take heed of the many lucid suggestions put forward at the end of the book.