The photo-elicitation of food worlds: A study on the eating behaviors of low socioeconomic Chilean women

Abstract

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd Traditional methods for studying eating behaviors include quantitative methods such as 24-h dietary recalls or food frequency questionnaires. Recently, visual methods such as photo-elicitation (PE) have been recognized as useful for studying and understanding eating behaviors. PE has been defined as the use of images during an interview. The goals of this study are to demonstrate the potential of PE for exploring the eating behaviors of Chilean women of low socioeconomic status and to show the advantages and disadvantages of PE from the participants’ points of view. The study included 31 participants who were asked to take pictures that represented what they considered important to them in their “food world”. The pictures were developed and participants were invited to participate in an individual interview. Participants were able to talk about their eating behaviors and those of their families, the factors influencing those behaviors, their dietary knowledge and sk