Ethnographic research - jojeen 13

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Ethnographic research on junk food intake in Mexico 
Tecmilenio University, Anthropology 2
Ethnography is a branch of anthropology that tries to understand a community or phenomena involving a society, by observing it in a non-directed way. (Ken Anderson, 2009)
These are the steps for making a successful ethnographic research:
First of all, we need to make a work plan and find all the resources, organize our time and ask for permissions for us to conduct this study properly. After that, we need to formulate our topic and define the main focus of the research, we can do this based on our interests. 
Next, we need to start gathering information in fieldwork, we can use cameras or field diaries to record every small detail we need to recall. According to Singleton and Straits (2005), your
field notes made during the fieldwork should include people’s descriptions, forgotten episodes, future ideas, personal impressions, and feelings. 
Finally, with all our data, photos and notes, we should start analyzing the results and make a final conclusion for it. 
There are several techniques we can apply for developing an ethnography. As seen in class, we can just observe the community studied (Participant observation) and make notes about it. Angrosino (2007) really liked these techniques cause he believed ‘’we can perceive the activities and interrelationships of people in the field setting with observation’’. 
We can also use the ‘’Life History’’ technique, which consists of interviewing an individual who is asked to tell all the outstanding experiences of the community. 
Another useful technique called ‘’Focus group’’ which similar to a debate, help us recollect diverse opinions shared. All we need is a group of between 6 and 12 people, a moderator, a script and that's it. 
There are also good methods for us to use, like for example the ‘’Study of the case’’ which I believe is one of the easiest because we just need to gather as much physical information of a community as possible. ‘’This is the analysis of existing materials stored for research,
service or other purposes officially and unofficially’’ (Angrosino, 2007)
Another valuable method that I personally like is the ‘’Participative Action’’. With this method, we can gain great benefits for our research because the participants of the study are part of the investigation themselves. 
And to conclude, there is another called ‘’Oral history’’, which is one of the easiest and most used methods, because it allows us to gather personal memories and transmitted data that goes from generation to generation with a set of interviews. 
All of these methods and techniques mentioned above are just a few of the numerous existing in the ethnographic research field. Every single one has its own color, purpose, and characteristics, and it's the anthropologist job to choose the method and techniques(s) that are gonna be used depending on the desired outcome.
Childhood obesity in relation to parent education methods.
The aim of this research is to determine the possible existence of increasing childhood obesity regarding parenting methods by analyzing Mexico’s families and their health-related educational habits.
In Mexico, overweight and obesity in children under five years old have increased by almost 2% from 1988 to 2012, and this keeps happening mostly because of the parents.
In this research, I studied Mexican families by using the ''Oral History'' method and the ''Interview Guide'' method or most commonly known as ''Semi-structured interview''. 
The research started on March 3th 2019 and concluded on March 10th, 2019. We approached ten different families in the neighborhood and asked them about their formal and informal eating habits.
Here’s the transcript of the question used in the study case and the average answers:
	Being completely sincere, how important is health for you and your family?
	Parents care about their health but the children are not really interested in the topic.
	Could you tell me a little bit about your family’s diet?
	People feed mainly on meat and carbs. Children don't like vegetables or fruit in general, so the parents don't make them eat it.
	At what time do you have dinner?
	Most of them have dinner between 8 pm to 9 pm
	How often do you play with your kids? / Do your kids play outside often?
	Because of external and internal factors, their children don't play outside very often. They prefer online games.
	When sad, stressed or frustrated do you usually binge in food?
	Most of them don't. 
	Does any member of your family binge in food when sad, stressed or frustrated?
	Children do binge on food most commonly than parents. 
	What is your children’s favorite food? and usually, when do they have it?
	The average answer to this question was pizza and parents buy it for their children almost every weekend.
	Have you ever rewarded any member of your family with food?
	All of them answered yes.
	What is your opinion about added sugar?
	Most of them showed indifferent opinions about it. All of them eat added sugar every day.
	What is your opinion about junk food?
	Most of them like it. All of them eat junk food at least once a week.
	What do you think about parents that stop their children’s nagging with any candy or junk food?
	All of them confessed they stop their children’s nagging/anger/sadness with either candy or junk food. The average food used for stoping them was cookies. 
After gathering all the results I was completely stunned about the results. None of them showed especial care about health or junk food, which affirms the next hypothesis:
People don't educate their children about food. 
Most of the parents are busy because of work or house chores so they don't quite make affordable cooking, and fast food/ delivering food can always be an option.
So parents are indeed letting their children eat these trash food and most of them don't care about it or at least don't show a big concert because of it. 
Observations: I could notice within my observations, that the parent’s children were either overweight or underweight. Some of the houses I’ve been to also had cookies and chocolate on the table, which showed how basic this trash food is for them.
Some children I got to see had pimples around their face, a thing that is something uncommon and unhealthy at their age. A 7-year-old kid had his face full of pimples, especially in the nose, and after some research, I confirmed that's completely out of the healthy standard. This observations really astonished me, but another shocking fact was that children don't play outside anymore. 
While hearing the parent stories, I could notice the big difference between old and modern playtime, because most of the parents used to go outside for a big part of the day, while nowadays kids don't.
A factor of this, three parents confirmed was because of the high kidnappings rate. Adults are concern about their children's safety, so they prefer their kids not to go outside or to play for less time outside. Another factor, according to the interviewed parents was injuries. Parents used to play roughly in the street, climbing threes and running non-stop, which usually led to injuries, bruises, and wounds. This makes parents concern, so they feel better when their kids are inside. 
These and many other factors like homework and weather, contribute to the stay-inside kids. Also, a very important factor is videogames. Because they spend lots of hours playing video games, there is no time for running outside or climbing threes.
All of this together puts us in a very unpleasant view: Children not moving, not being active. In the top of this, we can add the parent's careless diet. 
Observations: While doing the interviews, I could see the children watching tv or playing with an IPad or a cellphone. The houses were averagely clean and most of them had nice interiors, I even went to a house that smelled like vanilla. There were also family pictures and they looked pretty united. A singlemom I interviewed had his daughter in her hands because she didn't want to let go. I could see they had a strong bond between them. 
So in conclusion, children are eating more, consuming junk food and tons of added sugar every day and they are not losing all the calories ingested. This is leading to a high increase in overweight and obese children, which can also lead to diabetes and other heart diseases. The worst of all is that parents are not doing anything about it and they are most of the times the ones who are supporting this by giving them junk food and added sugar whenever they want in the first place. 
To stop this tendency we should definitely start with changing our eating habits and also having in mind that added sugar and junk food is not a treat. 
The emergence of new technologies is also contributing to obesity and overweight problems. And according to the stories of the lives I’ve heard, parents are definitely a crucial part of their children’s health. 
This was a very short and limited research, but without any doubt, anthropologists can go deeper to the starting moment of childhood obesity and find a successful way of decreasing it.
My solution after all, like I mentioned before, is changing our eating habits, starting to care about our health, knowing the disadvantages of bad consuming and starting a new active life. 
Bibliography
Sangasubana, N. (2009). How to conduct ethnographic research. The Qualitative Report, 16(2), 567-573. Retrieved from http://nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR16-2/sangasubana.pdf
 
Anderson, K. (2014, 1 Agosto). Ethnographic Research: A Key to Strategy. Retrieved 10 marzo, 2019, from https://hbr.org/2009/03/ethnographic-research-a-key-to-strategy
Salud y Medicinas. (s.f.). Obesidad infantil aumenta peligrosamente en Mexico [Infographics]. Retrived 10 marzo, 2019, from https://www.saludymedicinas.com.mx/centros-de-salud/obesidad/infografias/obesidad-infantil-aumenta-peligrosamente-mexico.html
 Singleton y Straits, (2017), Approaches to Social Research in Oxford, Reino Unido, University Press. Retrieved from: https://foltanory.firebaseapp.com/aa714/approaches-to-social-research-by-royce-singleton-bruce-c-straits-1999-hardcover-by-bruce-c-straits-royce-singleton-b00zt1sgt2.pdf
M. Angrosino. (2007). Etnografía y observación participante en investigación Cualitativa. [archivo PDF]. Publications of London. Retrived from: https://www3.ufpe.br/moinhojuridico/images/ppgd/8.7c%20etnografia-y-observacion-participante.pdf