"Men like to Eat More Rice and Beans and Things like That": The Influence of Childhood Experience and Life Course Events on Dietary Acculturation.

Life course perspective provides a framework for examining the immigrant experience within the context of globalization and transnationalism. Life course perspective states that individuals develop food choice trajectories based on childhood experiences with food. This study examined the influence of childhood experiences and life events on eating behaviors of Dominican born women in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and New York City. Findings revealed that women developed traditional or non-traditional food choice trajectories. These food choice trajectories remained stable through transition points, such as immigration, marriage, and divorce. Women discussed changes in the amount of food that was eaten, which may explain weight gain after immigration. These findings highlight the limitations of acculturation theory in understanding the eating behaviors of immigrants and provide an alternative explanation for weight gain after immigration.

"Because we missed the way that we eat at the middle of the day:" Dietary acculturation and food routines among Dominican women.

Better understanding of dietary change mechanisms among growing immigrant populations is needed in light of increased risk for diet-related chronic health conditions and inconsistent associations between acculturation and diet. This grounded theory research aimed to understand the lived experiences of interactions between food culture and social, economic, and physical environments in an immigrating population, Dominican women living in the Dominican Republic and New York City. Twenty-nine Dominican women participated in qualitative interviews about food and eating behaviors, life course experiences, and environments. Daily food and eating routines, framed by shopping for, preparation of, and consumption of 'la comida' or the main meal, emerged as dominant themes reflecting differences in women's economic, social, and physical environments. Routines were shaped by employment, household characteristics, and the food environment. Participating women attributed weight gain to changes in their food routines following immigration. The construction, disruption, and reconstruction of food and eating routines in response to differing economic, social, and physical environments in the sending and the receiving cultures provided new insights into the relationship between structural and cultural contexts of food and eating in an immigrant population. A food routines framework provides new insights into behavioral and weight changes with immigration.

"Watching a person who knows how to cook, you'll learn a lot". Linked lives, cultural transmission, and the food choices of Puerto Rican girls.

In-depth individual interviews were conducted with mainland- and island-dwelling Puerto Rican girls (n=23) to determine how migration, acculturation, and family contexts influenced food choices. Interview data from girls with diverse migration experiences (U.S. mainland raised, recent migrants to U.S. mainland, and Puerto Rico raised) were triangulated with extensive participant observation conducted in New York State and Puerto Rico. Data analysis using a ground theory approach revealed that participants' access to traditional foods varied in three domains: mothers' (cultural orientation, health, work, and cooking skills); household (composition, presence of Puerto Rican grandmother, and cooking skills); and girls' (migration experience, food preferences and values, and cooking skills) characteristics. Four food choice types emerged from participant narratives that differed in these domains: everybody cooks, tradition keeper, seeker, and on my own. Varied language orientations and migration experiences were represented among girls across all four food choice types, ranging from consistent to limited access to traditional food, demonstrating the limitations of one-dimensional models for understanding dietary acculturation. Findings demonstrate how a multidimensional, culture-specific model, including both cultural and structural characteristics, can influence dietary acculturation at the family and household level and food choices among immigrant adolescent girls, and guide future research and interventions.