A culture-specific approach to nutritional assessment: An example from Chinese culture

摘要

This research illustrates, through fieldwork in a Taiwanese town, how and why ethnographic information should be incorporated into the process of nutritional assessment. Nutritional assessment is an important field in health science and health care industry. It relates dietary intake, physical characteristics, laboratory (or biochemical) measurements, and clinical indices to the state of the body. It yields data that have shaped national and international health policies which in turn influence the lifestyles of millions of people worldwide. However, it represents a definite set of the values and attitudes which biomedical scientists hold of the human body. Different cultures may have devised different rules regarding how, to whom, and under what circumstances body-related information can or cannot be revealed. Additionally, cultures may vary in defining an ideal body, normal and abnormal body functions, and proper bodily interactions. Consequently, nutritional assessment cannot be implemented efficiently without some substantive understanding of the sociocultural framework within which research subjects actually function. A culture-specific approach is therefore essential to enhance the feasibility of nutritional assessment in a given setting.;This research employs a social-biological-medical trichotomy to analyze the constructs of body culture. The major parameters of the Chinese body culture suggest that the selection of body sites for anthropometry and procedures of clinical examination in particular must be compatible with the profound Chinese concerns of modesty and avoiding direct exposure to wind and cold air. The universal application of yin-yang and wu-xing to classify foods, materia medica, body functions, seasonal cycles, and all natural phenomena and order eventually results in a Chinese emphasis on the role of food and diet in the prevention, treatment, and causation of illness. Over time, the principles of "correct diet" have been well incorporated into the Chinese meal system and cuisine. Moreover, food is used extensively to express a wide range of interpersonal relations, relations with the supernatural, and to mark rites of passage. Data from observation, questionnaire interviews, and seven-day food inventories indicate that as socioeconomic gaps in food accessibility diminish, traditional food culture continues to play a role in food choices, cooking styles, food use cycles, and nutritional well-being in a Taiwanese town.