Documenting Hunger

Report: Class, food, fat & thinness

Documenting Hunger: Famineways in Contemporary Southern Women’s Writing

Joelen Hubbs is an associate professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of Alabama. Hubbs’ research focuses on twentieth century U.S. literature and culture; gender and sexuality, Southern fiction, literary representations of race and class, and modernism. One of Hubbs’ most recent publications is entitledTransnational American Studies’ Female Troubleand was published online in 2018. Some of Hubbs’ research looks at how southern U.S. literature and culture depicts class, and uses a critical lens to dissect how those depictions might often be inaccurate and classist.

In this piece, Hubbs explores the history of viewing poor white hunger as an issue of poor white’s taste rather than their deprivation (pg 3). Throughout this piece, Hubbs examines a three-century-long literary pattern that depicts poor white hunger as being caused by their disagreeable appetites rather than their limited access to healthy foods. Hubbs references novels, travelogues, memoirs, short stories and essays to showcase these misconceptions regarding southern hunger. Hubbs then references Allison’s novel and Moss’s memoir to showcase the literary strategies they use to contest the tradition of blaming poor white people for their hunger. Ultimately, Hubbs analyzes how “these contemporary southern women writers (Allison and Moss) not only expose material and nutritional lack [in their writing] but also contest the long history of treating poor white hunger as an issue of depravity rather than deprivation” (pg. 3).

Hubbs begins her piece by discussing how southerners have embraced foodways (foodways—the cultural, social, and economic practices relating to the production and consumption of food) as what makes their culture distinct. She suggests, however, that when it comes to poor white southerners, linking food to self can cause problems. As an example, Hubbs references the reality TV show Here Comes Honey Boo Booin which a family of “self- proclaimed rednecks” eats junk food, roadkill, and other laughed-at foods. Hubbs argues that viewers of this show often misconstrue poverty as linked to preferring unsavory foods (pg. 2). Most of the time viewers don’t consider that these poor white people aren’t afforded the privilege to shop for healthy foods. Hubbs’ use of the recent showHoney Boo Booserves as a good starting point, as many readers can understand this 20thcentury example. Her use of this example serves as a good transition into the rest of her piece which dives into 3 centuries of blaming poor whites for their hunger in literature rather than allowing poor whites to explain why they are hungry for themselves.

A portion of this piece falls under the section “Unnatural Appetites: Patrician Perspectives on Hunger”. This section offers literary examples, dating back as early as the 1700s, in which patrician writers describe poor white hunger in a way that showcases the writer’s class privilege and their own misconceptions surrounding poor hunger. As an example of this, Hubbs references William Byrds account of the south in 1728, who notes that poor white people are surrounded by food and fertility, but still have little to eat. Byrd attributes this observation to the people’s inherent aversion to labor. Hubbs states that Byrd “inaugurates a three-hundred-year tradition of treating poor white deprivation as a personal pathology rather than a political or economic problem,” (pg 3).

Other elite writers proceeding Byrd make similar claims about southern hunger. Hubbs states that, according to these authors, poor whites have unhealthy cravings and do not gorge on food but instead gorge on clay, racism and and snuff (pg. 3). Hubbs uses these examples to show that these elites rewrite economic and social ills as personal ills. Racism, snuff dipping and clay are all depicted as substances on which poor whites feast, rather than feasting on food (pg. 5). Hubbs’ references these pieces and demonstrates a common theme in each. Instead of considering that poor white hunger is caused by social inequality, all these elite writers depict hunger as a personal problem (pg. 6).

Each of the examples Hubbs’ offers in the section Patrician Perspectives on Hungerserve to show what the writers Dorothy Allison and Barbara Moss are writing against in their use of literary strategies, which Hubbs terms “famineways” (pg. 8). Hubbs writes that “Allison and Moss refute classist associations between material lack and intellectual lack,” by writing pieces in which literature plays a large role in poor white southerner’s lives (pg. 8). Hubbs states that in both texts “hungry characters seek mental satiety, savoring mouthfuls of good words as temporary antidotes to empty stomachs,” (pg. 9). Moss’s memoir challenges elite writers linking of sustenance and sense by depicting physically hungry poor whites who are intellectually sated.

Hubbs also shows how Allison’s and Moss’ writing gives examples of how large cultural narratives can script people into an assigned social role (pg. 11). In Allison’s book, the character Bone is gifted a copy of Gone with the Windand realizes that she is part of the trash class in the book, and will never be able to live the life of Scarlette (a high class woman from the book). Hubbs shows how Allison’s novel uses Gone with the Windto demonstrate how “knowledge of poor whites’ circumscribed role in an elite-authored tradition” is what stymies poor whites, not ignorance (pg. 12). This raises the idea of cultural capital (Bourdieu), the habits and dispositions we possess due to our life experiences as they relate to our SES.

Throughout the rest of this piece Hubbs gives examples in Allison’s and Moss’ writings, showing how “hunger continues to be written out of the elites’ stories of the south,” (pg. 16). Allison and Moss reverse that trend by portraying poor whites who are literate, well read, and still hungry for food but not lacking in knowledge. Hubbs concludes her writing, by bringing the reader back to a current example of literature that takes place in the south and depicts everyone as having enough to eat—The Help(2009). By introducing and concluding with current examples, Hubbs leaves the reader pondering their own experience with unrealistic depictions of southern hunger. Overall, Hubbs provides a look at how contemporary southern writers have incorrectly placed blame on poor whites for their hunger, while also showcasing examples by Allison and Moss in which this literary trend is reversed.

Questions:

With Hubbs’ analysis in mind, what other examples of classist depictions in literature (TV, movies, novels, etc.) come to mind for you?
Does Hubbs offer any objections to her analysis/argument, if so where? If not, what potential contradictions to the elite depictions of southern hunger in contemporary literature exist? Should Hubbs have acknowledged these pieces of literature that do not blame hunger on the poor (other than Moss and Allison)?
What exactly does Hubbs mean when she coins the term “famineways”?
Hubbs writes on page 12 that, “Bastard Out of Carolina evokes Margaret Mitchell’s work [Gone with the Wind] in order to purge it, creating space to show that knowledge, not ignorance, stymies poor whites—knowledge, that is, of poor whites’ circumscribed role in an elite-authored tradition,” what are the effects of this circumscribing of roles today, and where can they be seen?

The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s Farm Fields and the Dinner Table

Tracie McMillan is a Brooklyn-based writer and has been covering America’s multiracial working class since the 1990s. McMillan is also a lecturer who has spoken across the USA about her work and the topics it covers including: labor, cooking, and the growing class divide. McMillan was named a Knight-Wallace Journalist fellow at the University of Michigan in 2013, and has taught journalism at Wesleyan University as a Koeppel Journalism Fellow. McMillan’s New York Times bestseller is entitled The American Way of Eating, published in 2012. Some of her recent writing include When the Kitchen Isn’t Safe for Women(2017), and How China Plans to Feed 1.4 Billion Growing Appetites (2018).

In these excerpts from her book,The American Way of Eating, McMillan writes of her quest to answer the question, “Why is it so difficult to eat well in America?” McMillan starts by describing her own experience with food growing up, and when she moved to Brooklyn. She states that if she, “didn’t have extra money to buy healthy food, or time to prepare it, that meant the cheap and the processed,” (pg.2 ). McMillan describes how the myth that only the affluent and educated care about what they eat has been perpetuated because parts of the myth are true (pg. 2). In these two excerpts, McMillan gives an overview of how she got started on her quest to understand why it is so expensive to eat healthy in America. McMillan finds that “fresh food should be a social good and human right, and that it would make more sense to have a little public control over its distribution,” (pg. 239).

After meeting a girl named Venessa in a cooking class which McMillan was writing about for a magazine piece, McMillan became inspired to write about the food system in America. Venessa pointed out to McMillan the lack of farmers’ markets in her neighborhood, the lack of time people had to frequent markets due to work, and how expensive healthy foods were (pg. 5). This conversation with McMillan serves as a starting point for her journey trying to understand the food system, and leads McMillan to ponder why fresh food tends to cost more, why NYC corner stores are packed with unhealthy processed foods, and why folks of limited means can’t afford to eat healthy (pg. 5).

On her journey through the food system, McMillan began to realize that everyone wants good food (pg. 7). This realization connects back to Hubbs’ piece that shows how elite writers from the south have a history of blaming poor whites for their hunger. Unlike McMillan, those writers did not realize that everyone wants good food, but some cannot afford it. After realizing this, McMillan gives examples of celebrities who have worked to encourage people to make better health decisions, celebrities including Rachel Ray and Ted Nugent (pg. 7). But no amount of encouraging people to eat well will make everyone able to put those ideals within reach McMillan argues (pg. 8). Thus, McMillan tries to answer how we can transform those ideals “from luxury products into typical ones, and how to make a food-scape crowded with junk into an anomaly,” (pg. 8).

The stakes are high—obesity might soon be the deadliest health threat in America over tobacco, and today 2/3 of Americans are overweight (pg. 8). McMillan uses these statistics and facts to educate the reader on why blaming Americans for their lack of commitment to health is problematic. McMillan supports this claim by giving examples, one being that rates of obesity typically rise the farther people live from grocery stores (pg. 9). The problem, McMillan argues, is that “food is one of the only base human needs where the private market alone dictates its delivery to our communities,” (pg. 12).

In the second excerpt, Conclusion: A New American Way of Eating, McMillan tells of her time spent working in the food system (pg. 233). McMillan increases her credibility on the subject by actually working as a farmhand in California, at a Walmart in Michigan, and at an Applebee’s in Brooklyn. These experiences allow McMillan to write about the food system in America with credibility.

McMillan states that we need more jobs and higher wages so that the cost of food stops being a concern (pg. 238). Additionally, she writes that “one of the easiest ways to do that is to make eating well affordable,” through universal coupons for produce (pg. 238). The use of coupons for produce was mentioned in Allison Aubrey’s article Does Subsidizing Crops We’re Told to Eat Less of Fatting Us Up?This article Aubrey introduces readers, initially, to the problem with subsidizing the things that we are told to eat less of (pg. 2). However, Aubrey offers other ways she was informed on (not involving subsidized crops) to change the food system in America to help make eating health more affordable. Aubrey finds that limiting advertising, continuing the use of food stamps for produce, and relying on government support programs could be key to achieving cheaper health foods.

The article by Aubrey relates back to McMillan’s concluding statements. In her conclusion McMillan says that we have focused our energy on making food, but not on getting it to citizens. Distributing food through private networks turns food into a consumer good, when really it should be a public good. Aubrey’s suggestions about making healthy food more affordable could be vital to making food a public good. America, McMillan states, has been in similar situations before, and since success in change before came from appealing to the “struggling workers of America,” food-related change will need to do the same (pg. 241).

Questions:

Do you think McMillan’s mention of Ford at the end, and his appeal to the working class, is relevant to her argument? In what ways does Ford’s strategy relate to a potential strategy for changing the food system in America?
On page 235 McMillan states that “eating is a social act”, what do you think McMillan means by this? What examples does she offer to show this? What have you experienced in your own life regarding this statement?
McMillan quotes Harvey Levenstein on page 10 with his phrase “paradox of plenty”. What does McMillan mean by this?
Does McMillan offer adequate suggestions for how the food system in America can be changed to one in which food is a public good? If so, what are those suggestions?

The Fat Studies Reader

Paul Ernsberger is an Asociate Professor at Case Western Reverse University in the department of Nutrition and Neurosciences. Ernsberger did bench research on fundamental questions of science for 40 years, and has now transitioned into human subject research. His research interests include: Metabolic, pharmacology, obesity, weight cycling, and hypertension.

Other research of Ernsberger includes: Control of Respiratory Skeletal and Smooth Muscle, and Clonidine & the Imidazole Receptor in Hypertension.

This study on SES and Weight, done by Ernsberger, is grounded in the fact that adiposity is strongly related to SES in modern Wester societies (pg 25.) Ernsbergs sites multiple studies showing this, one specifically done by Sobal and Stunkard revealed strong links between low SES and high body weight; however, this relationship only applied consistently to adult women in developed nations (pg. 25). Of the research he pulls from, children of low SES have not shown the same trend with SES. This paper focuses on answering what is causing this link between weight and SES, looking to find an answer to the question of why the poor are fat (pg. 26). Ernerberger argues that people who are poor are not less healthy due to being fat, but instead are less healthy because impoverishment leads to living in stressful, polluted, environments with poor healthcare. Ultimately, Ernsberger states that being fat leads to downward mobility, and that the “driving force [of]… fatness among the poor is social stigma and systematic discrimination, which deprives fat people of the opportunity to move up the social ladder,” (pg. 33).

One study Ernsberger looked at showed that fat young women were less likely to be married, their household income was a third lower, and they were 3 times more likely to live in poverty than their thin counterparts (Gortmaker et al., 1993). Another study shows that fat and thin young people scored equally on an intelligent test, but that fat people were more likely to live in poverty (pg. 27). Ernsberger also incorporates research showing that fat young people were not more likely to have chronic health conditions than thin people (Gortmaker et al,. 1993). Ernsberger uses all these studies to build his argument that it is not health problems or lower intelligences that cause fat people to have higher rates of impoverishment. As Ernberger describes it, “although there is some evidence that poverty is fattening, a stronger case can be made for converse: fatness is impoverishing,” (pg. 26).

Ernsberger also ties in research showing that low SES is linked to cardiovascular disease, later diagnosis of cancers, less access to quality health care, and that health care lacks continuity for poor people. One study even looked at the effect on risk of death of having a fat person in the household (Gronniger, 2005). Ernsberger used this study cleverly because it showed that it was “just as hazardous to live with a fat person as to actually be a fat person,” (pg. 28). His use of this compilation of evidence gives him credibility in saying that poor people are not unhealthy because they are fat.

Ernsberger, however, does not effectively argue that “if you are rich it is dangerous to be fat (but being thin is fine); if you are poor it is much more dangerous to be than than to be fat.” Although Ernser sites some credible research, he fails to provide enough examples and research that demonstrate this finding. This part of his argument is unnecessary and slightly convolutes the rest of his argument centered around fatness and low SES. Instead of diving into this, Ernsberger should have continued to focus on providing evidence that the stigma, stress, and discrimination faced by fat persons of high SES in West may cause cardiovascular mortality. Whereas, for people of lower SES, there is less stigma against body fat and therefor less stress caused by being fat, leading to less cardiovascular disease (pg. 30).

Ernsberger uses research showing that coming from a low SES and being overweight leads to societal discrimination which causes many fat people of low SES to have poor body image. This poor body image can “diminish self care activities,” (pg. 32). This along with the prejudicial medical care given to fat people often leads them to avoid doctors due to negative experiences. These examples show how fatness might be related to poor health in ways less related to the physical wear and tear on heavier bodies, and more related to the discrimination and social stigma of fat people. Overall, Ernsberger cites numerous research articles to show how fatness might not directly be what is causing poor people to be unhealthy, and to also show that fatness is impoverishing due to the discrimination people have against fat people. Additionally, he argues that “many of the diseases linked to adiposity are also linked to poverty,” and that the association between high weight and ill health is much stronger for people of higher SES.

Questions:

When do you think the stigma and systematic discrimination depriving fat people the opportunity to move up the social ladder first came into being? What events/social changes might have caused this stigma to arise?
What parts of Ernsberger’s argument do you find to be the strongest? Do you feel that his argument covers a manageable amount of topics/research? What gaps/strengths are there in his argument?