Walk a mile in my shoes: culturally sensitive food-habit research

Issues of cultural meaning loom large in efforts to gather dietary data accurate enough to support nutritional analyses, identify marginal diets, or relate risk to dietary pattern. When scientifically trained researchers work in nonscientific settings--which are common in both the Western and non-Western worlds--many important problems of design, collection, and interpretation arise. Assumptions about the appropriateness of dietary patterns vary markedly from setting to setting, including assumptions about who makes dietary decisions. The definition of risk that is meaningful to food specialists may not be so to target populations. Even attitudes toward asking questions vary from society to society. Researchers can resolve many cultural communication issues by awareness, attention, and judicious combination of culturally sensitive qualitative and quantitative research techniques.