Using Photovoice to Create Awareness and Proactive Attitudes Among Mothers of Preschool-Aged Children About the Prevalence of Ultraprocessed Food in the Local Food Environment

PEER REVIEWED

The figure includes 3 categories of photographs. Example 1: How mothers examined pantry items at home and began to scrutinize ingredient lists and question previous assumptions; Example 2: Struggles of a busy daily life and how mothers then began to question the prevalence of ultraprocessed and fast-food establishments in their neighborhoods; and Example 3: How it isn’t easy to shop with children, and mothers began to notice and question how ultraprocessed food is directly marketed to children; mothers also began to ask about how they could change things (ie, proactive attitude). One column shows photographs that the participating mothers took pre-education, and another column shows photographs taken posteducation. For the first category, the pre-education photograph shows Kool-Aid packets with the mother’s quote, “My children love this stuff.” The posteducation photograph shows frozen chicken nuggets with the quote, “This does not show the ingredient list, but I took this picture because I used to think these chicken nuggets were healthy, but now that I see this list, I am not so sure.” In the second category, the pre-education photograph is of a fast-food sign at night with a special $2 deal and the quote, “We were hungry and tired. I knew I would spend more at the grocery store, so we stopped for this deal for dinner.” The posteducation photograph is of a Dunkin’ Donuts restaurant with the quote, “So I don’t know if you can really see in this picture, but I was driving down the street, and I noticed that there’s like a corner store, then there’s like a Dunkin’ Donuts, and then there’s Burger King. There are 5 unhealthy stores before you get to a healthy. So, that was the purpose of this picture.” In the third category, the pre-education photograph is of a grocery store shelf with Yoohoo, Kool-Aid and other drinks with the quote, “I took this picture because my kids ran toward these drinks and wanted them.” The posteducation photograph is of Froot Loops with the quote, “Most foods that children see are ultraprocessed, and the packaging draws them in. I’m like, that’s really crazy. How is this normal? What can we do? It is really hard to find fresh food in our area.”
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