Lunchbox Shaming: Asian Immigrant Families’ Perspectives on Canadian School Food Environment

Food has profound symbolic values that shape one’s cultural identity. For immigrant families in Canada, food often plays a crucial role in maintaining their emotional ties to “home” and preserving their culinary identities across generations. But school food environments shaped by dominant food norms can produce a feeling of shame and embarrassment for children whose food practices are not in tune. 

Lunchbox Shaming: Asian Immigrant Families’ Perspectives on Canadian School Food Environment is an innovative arts-informed research project that explores how children, youth, and their families from three Asian visible minority groups (i.e., Chinese, Indian, Filipino) describe their experiences at school lunchtime in Canada.  This project will generate a rich description – both in words and visuals – of how Asian-identifying families navigate through the Canadian school food system. We hope the findings from this study can further conversations toward a more diverse and inclusive school food environment. We also want to assess the validity and feasibility of the arts-informed method in researching with (not on) children, youth, and families from diverse backgrounds and abilities.