Paper short abstract:

Precarious households in Dakar increasingly manage “multiple manifestations” of malnourishment, from stunting to diabetes. These divergent experiences pique epidemiological interest in the domestic distribution of food and the cultural politics of nourishment.

Paper long abstract:

Low income and precarious households in Dakar increasingly manage a « double burden » of malnutrition. These households contain “multiple manifestations” of malnourishment including stunting, wasting, overweight, and diet related chronic diseases, in particular diabetes and hypertension. As debility in middle age and at the end of life becomes ubiquitous, practices of eating and sharing food are increasingly blamed. The emergence of metabolic syndrome in the heart of households appears to signal a maldistribution of household nutritional resources, piquing interest in a range of cultural practices associated with the domestic division and distribution of food. Meanwhile people living in precarious and low income households ask pointed and pertinent questions about connections between insecurity, proletarianisation and chronicity. Moving between epidemiology and household ethnography I examine the epidemiological sense made of cultural practice as nourishment becomes a new kind of global problem. Diagnoses introduce unfamiliar and unappealing nutritional repertoires in households built on solidarity and collective eating. Young women struggle to provide "good care" to their older relatives as safe nourishment increasingly means restricting access to shared food.