In popular discussions of healthy eating, including political rhetoric and nutrition counselling, women are often blamed for a lack of nutrition knowledge or cooking skills, leading to the assumption that a decline in cooking skills is connected with unhealthy diets and obesity. This has been called a “deficit approach” and my research with Ghanaian women set out to challenge some of its assumptions.
Previous studies on Ghanaian immigrants showed that following their arrival in the United Kingdom, most maintained their dietary traditions. This cuts against the perception that they, like others, would quickly succumb to fast-food culture in high-income countries. We also know that traditional diets, while seemingly healthy, can also contain excess calories and fat and thus cause a range of health issues such as type 2 diabetes, cancer, and hypertension. The reason for this may lie in the way the home-cooked food is prepared, cooked, or served.
