Food-related behaviors and attitudes around racial and ethnic foods in US adults who live alone

The food-related behaviors and attitudes around racial and ethnic foods among US adults who live alone is an important topic of study. One-person households are the fastest-growing household form in the country (McCue, 2018; Ortiz-Ospina, 2019). Unfortunately, certain populations living alone disproportionately have eating behaviors that are known to contribute to diet-related diseases (Sidenvall et al., 2000; Torres et al., 1992) and face mental health and social risks (Hu et al., 2012; Joutsenniemi et al., 2006; Ng & Northcott, 2015). Racial and ethnic minorities, in particular, face unique nutrition (James, 2004) and mental health challenges (Meyer et al., 2008). It is therefore important to study the intersection of living alone and food- related behaviors and attitudes among racial and ethnic minorities and how that can influence mental health and nutritional outcomes. This thesis uses Food Agency Theory to understand these phenomena. I use data from a larger project called Cooking for One, which is a multi- method project using quantitative, qualitative and participatory methods to investigate the household food practices of people living alone. Data from semi-structured qualitative interviews and photo voice exercises from 90 participants in Illinois were analyzed. Two themes emerged from these data. The first theme reveals the positive influence of foods related to participant’s racial and ethnic identity on their mental health and social connections by bringing them a sense of pride or comfort. The second themes the barriers to consuming foods related to people’s racial/ethnic identity. The positive influence of participant’s racial and ethnic foodways hold the potential to improve people’s mental health and social connectedness, while offering mixed impacts on nutritional outcomes (Lahne et al., 2017; van Strien et al., 2019). The second theme reveals the barriers to consuming foods related to participants’ racial or ethnic identity, which included limited access to ingredients needed to cook the food, negative beliefs surrounding the nutritional value of the food, and the complexity of food preparation for one person. Many participants were able to overcome these barriers by demonstrating food agency, but many participants struggled to enact food agency. Participants who were able to enact food agency were able to do so through their cooking skills to modify their food, had more flexible food attitudes, or had social connections that assisted them with overcoming the barriers. These findings highlight the unique food-related behaviors and attitudes around racial and ethnic foods among those who live alone, and how food agency can help alleviate barriers to consuming foods related to racial and ethnic identity faced by those living alone. These findings are important because they inform future research directions and potential nutrition interventions to help minimize some of the mental health or nutritional risks faced by racial and ethnic minorities living alone.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Nutritional Sciences

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Tang, Xiangning

Contributors dc:contributor

• Oleschuk, Merin
• Raj, Minakshi

• Living alone
• One-person households
• Racial and ethnic minorities
• Racial and ethnic identity
• Food agency
• Food Behaviors
• Food Attitudes
• Nutritional outcomes
• Mental health

Statement dc:rights

• © 2025 Xiangning Tang

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129728

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F129728