The Unending Hunger: Tracing Women and Food Insecurity across Borders by Megan A. Carney

Author:Megan A. Carney
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780520284005
Publisher: University of California Press

Figure 13. Brenda’s self-portrait. Photo courtesy of Brenda.

While only five of the women I formally interviewed had actually been diagnosed with diabetes since living in the United States, all of them reported knowing someone with the disease—often a relative. Yet even without a formal diagnosis, many women worried about the possible onset of the disease and lacking the means to obtain a diagnosis. The prevalence of this concern among women contrasts significantly with the stance assumed by many public health practitioners—basically, that economically disadvantaged populations develop diabetes because of a lack of awareness about the disease, thus signaling a need for more education (an issue that I will revisit in chapter 4).

Pilar, for instance, agonized about her potential for developing diabetes as her own father had died of complications related to the disease. She worried incessantly about her weight despite recently having come to term in her pregnancy:

PILAR: I feel bad because I’ve gained weight. I feel a lot of pressure, anxiety. I feel very bad.

M [MODERATOR OF FOCUS GROUP]: Why do you feel pressure?

PILAR: Because I’ve gained a lot of weight and I don’t like it. I don’t feel well, because it does me harm. I run the risk of my blood sugar rising, my father died from this.

M: He died from diabetes?

PILAR: Yes. My problem is with my health.

M: So you see everything as being connected to your health?

PILAR: Everything is connected to my health.

Pilar had arrived in the United States only recently, having spent several months in an immigrant detention center while pregnant. She had migrated from Honduras because she feared for her life there. However, she had also left behind two children with her own mother. She was anxious about her children’s well-being, and having recently obtained asylum status she hoped to send for them soon. Yet she was also adjusting to her new life in the United States, and to becoming the mother of another child. Although Pilar benefited from support through her friends and boyfriend, she was dealing with multiple sources of anxiety that no doubt had an imprint on how she perceived her own health.

Several of the women I interviewed often connected concerns about weight or diabetes to feelings of depression. Paloma, who had been struggling to find work for several months and whose husband had endured a work injury (thus putting him out of a job), relayed her memories of being diagnosed with diabetes: “When I realized I had [this disease], I went into a depression. I said, ‘I’m going to die,’ but [the doctors] said, ‘No, you can control this.’ However, I still went into a depression.” Since her diagnosis, she had been taking nutrition classes and was “trying to eat healthy” through the practice of cuidarse en la comida (caring for herself through food). Considering her broader circumstances, Paloma’s depression may have also been brought on by the stress of no income between her and her husband as well as the shame she associated with being part of a childless couple.

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