From food scarcity to obese children the rapid transformation of health and food consumption in Spain

Abstract: Spain has one of the highest rates of childhood obesity in the world in 2012. This study asks, why, through studying, which food environment some Spanish parents create for their children. It studies the historical perspective of resources of food and the image of body and health this interpretatively has generated. Moreover, it studies the social circumstances of the studied parents, how they describe the transformation to democracy; a higher educational level, a disintegration of the previous family structure and a adaption to new food trends. Through life story interviews, ethnographic interviews, participant observation, group interviews with parents and elderly women, interview with specialists and an open questioned questionnaire, this study seeks to understand the multi-faceted issue of child obesity and the children’s food environment. Through using the inductive collection method, grounded theory, the empirical discoveries reflected which theories were studied. Through a fieldwork in Barcelona it was interpreted that the grandparents of nowadays children are carrying marks from a long period with food scarcity, which interpretatively influenced nowadays grandparents’ perception of a healthy body and often results in them overfeeding their grandchildren. Another discovery was that the transformation to modernization has happened in almost only one generation in Spain hence Franco’s dictatorship, which ended in 1975. Modernization rushed into Spain and into the family through new gender roles in the home and a new distribution of the meals. Due to the welfare structure, low education level and inequality in Spain it is interpreted that Spain was not ready for this changes. The consequences were less time for cooking and creating a healthy food environment, but in exchange getting sweet biscuits and potato chips in to the everyday food environment.