Browsing by Author "Grocke, Michelle U."
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Item After the Road Came: Insights into the Nexus of Food Security and Malnutrition in Northwestern Nepal(2018-11) Grocke, Michelle U.; McKay, Kimber H.The United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition 2016–2025 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development call on all countries and stakeholders to work together to prevent all forms of malnutrition by 2030. In Nepal, these considerations are at the forefront of the country's Sustainable Development Goals. To aid in this effort, this article presents a case study from the mountainous Humla District, Nepal, that was designed to better understand how the arrival of the first road in this area is affecting food security and nutritional status, and how these 2 variables are interrelated. Data from participant observation, interviews, the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale questionnaire, and a region-specific food frequency questionnaire suggest that while the road provides more reliable access to market-sourced food than before, villagers' intake of many micronutrients remains below recommended levels, as most of the market-purchased foods are nutrient poor. Data also suggest that this population is experiencing the double burden of malnutrition: simultaneous cases of underweight and overweight. High food security levels among those in the malnourished/overweight group could easily mask this emerging public health concern. This study provides an analytical framework to better understand the nexus of food security and nutrition, and offers evidence-based recommendations for decreasing food insecurity and malnutrition in mountainous regions, which will help achieve the goal of preventing all forms of malnutrition by 2030.Item "I Want to See Those Memories": Social Affordances of Mobile Phone Cameras and Social Network Sites in Collegiate Drinking(2019-06) Quintero, Gilbert; Bundy, Henry; Grocke, Michelle U.Alcohol use remains a prominent feature of American collegiate social life. Emerging technological developments, particularly the proliferation of mobile phone cameras and the easy sharing of digital images on social network sites (SNS), are now widely integrated into these drinking practices. This article presents an exploratory study examining how 40 students on a midsized college campus in the interior Pacific Northwest incorporate these technologies into their drinking activities. Data from semistructured interviews are considered within the theoretical framework of “affordances,†which classifies material technologies (camera phones, SNS) as simultaneously inhabiting the role of artifact shaped by human action and of object that influences human conduct. Our data suggest that although contemporary college drinking reflects long-standing practices, cameras, digital images, and social media introduce new dimensions to college alcohol consumption and memory-making processes. These technologies are used to chronicle and archive the festive, social aspects of drinking; commemorate the good times that make up the college experience; and capture proud or incautious displays of excessive drinking. Our examination of emergent college drinking practices seeks to extend understandings of contemporary trends in collegiate alcohol use beyond the discourse of risk and indiscretion to include other important social and cultural dimensions of these phenomena, including pro-social aspects of these practices and the social affordances provided by digital image sharing and reminiscing.Item Like Mother, Like Child?: Understanding Transitions in Diet, Health, and Nutrition in Humla, Nepal(2016-12) Grocke, Michelle U.; Haddix McKay, KimberItem Subjective Well-Being in Two Himalayan Communities, Post Road Development(The Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies, 2019-07) Grocke, Michelle U.; McKay, Kimber Haddix; Foor, ThomasAlthough the first road to ever be built into Humla, Nepal is still under construction, it has already spurred numerous sociocultural and economic changes, including an increased integration into the market economy, changing access to market-purchased foods, and new kinds of health-seeking behavior. This paper is part of a larger research project where we examined changing health and nutrition outcomes co-synchronous with the arrival of this road. In this paper, we focus on whether and how the road is affecting villagers’ subjective well-being (SWB). We studied this while living and working with people from two Humli villages, one that is on the road, and one that is far from it. In these villages, we developed two local models of SWB, using the villagers’ own conceptual frameworks and sense of the factors that play a role in wellbeing. Our analyses showed that villagers’ conceptualization of SWB varied substantially according to road proximity. Additionally, we quantified indices from villagers’ SWB assessments and tested which variables were significant determinants of wellbeing. We discovered a significant relationship between an individual’s well-being level and two variables: available resources per household and levels of social support. The purpose of this paper is threefold: to better understand how villagers from Upper Humla define SWB, to identify which subset of the population is not benefitting in terms of their SWB from the new road, and to present a mixed-methods, anthropologically-based approach for the development of a locally meaningful measure of SWB.Item Subjective Well-Being in Two Himalayan Communities, Post Road Development(2019-06-19) Grocke, Michelle U.; McKay, Kimber Haddix; Foor, ThomasAlthough the first road to ever be built into Humla, Nepal is still under construction, it has already spurred numerous sociocultural and economic changes, including an increased integration into the market economy, changing access to market-purchased foods, and new kinds of health-seeking behavior. This paper is part of a larger research project where we examined changing health and nutrition outcomes co-synchronous with the arrival of this road. In this paper, we focus on whether and how the road is affecting villagers’ subjective well-being (SWB). We studied this while living and working with people from two Humli villages, one that is on the road, and one that is far from it. In these villages, we developed two local models of SWB, using the villagers’ own conceptual frameworks and sense of the factors that play a role in wellbeing. Our analyses showed that villagers’ conceptualization of SWB varied substantially according to road proximity. Additionally, we quantified indices from villagers’ SWB assessments and tested which variables were significant determinants of wellbeing. We discovered a significant relationship between an individual’s well-being level and two variables: available resources per household and levels of social support. The purpose of this paper is threefold: to better understand how villagers from Upper Humla define SWB, to identify which subset of the population is not benefitting in terms of their SWB from the new road, and to present a mixed-methods, anthropologically-based approach for the development of a locally meaningful measure of SWB.Item Using Microlending to Achieve SDG 2: A Qualitative Exploration of the Nutrition-Related Impacts of Microlending Participation in Manila, Philippines(2020-02) Grocke, Michelle U.; Light, Timothy; Collado, Elijah KarlBackground: The recent rise of the double burden of malnutrition (i.e., the coexistence of underweight and overweight) in the Philippines presents a significant challenge to achieving numerous agreed-upon Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To combat the rising trends of both forms of malnutrition, this research assesses whether there are positive nutrition-related impacts from participation in a microlending program, and also seeks to determine whether microlending participants would be receptive to receiving nutrition promotion education as a component of the microlending model. If so, then microlending could serve as an effective information dissemination platform to increase the likelihood that participants will make nutritious food choices as they acquire more disposable income, thereby keeping both malnutrition rates and the subsequent risk of diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) at bay. Methods: Ethnographic fieldwork in 15 distinct urban neighborhoods in Manila, Philippines was conducted between May and August 2017. 24-h diet recalls and semi-structured interviews were utilized (N = 93) to determine whether and how participants’ food procurement decisions and macro- and micronutrient intake shifted throughout their participation in a microlending program. Results: Interview data illustrate that participants’ food procurement options and their sense of self-worth and empowerment increased the longer they were involved in the microlending program. However, the nutritional outcomes are more nuanced; while participants who had been in the program longer showed higher levels of micronutrient intake, they also consumed elevated levels of prestige items high in sugar and/or salt. Given that participants reported high levels of uncertainty surrounding nutritional information, more education is needed to reverse this trend and decrease the risk of malnutrition development and the associated adverse health outcomes. Conclusions: Microlending platforms may be a viable avenue for disseminating nutrition-related information. However, our data indicate that participants may only be receptive to this information after at least two years of participation because, prior to that, participants are too concerned with income generation, housing stability and their family’s education to fully absorb the information.