Home Mealtimes in Kenya and Zambia: Recognising culturally grounded practices that foster healthy eating behaviours

Globally, mealtimes provide key insights into cultural and social values and practices. We examine mealtime environments and eating practices in two different African settings using quantitative observational and questionnaire data. Participating families (N = 80) were recruited from two rural locations in Zambia and Kenya. Results following descriptive analysis showed that meals are typically taken as a family in a sociable context, providing opportunities to nurture children’s positive behaviours. In both communities, mothers (71.25%) were most likely to be present and typically prepared meals and provided the food. We observed a few distractions being used during mealtimes, and children finished their food with little to no conflict. Plate sharing varied across the two sites and was more common in Zambia, where we also observed more traditional practices such as eating with hands (as opposed to cutlery) and sitting on mats on the ground (as opposed to seated on chairs or sofas). Overall, our findings suggest more similarities in the cultural and social values across the two African contexts despite slight differences in mealtime practices. In particular, positive mealtime behaviours (little food refusal, lack of conflict) were common across all contexts, regardless of the extent to which traditional practices (such as plate-sharing and sitting on the floor) were used. Findings align with Family Systems theory, which states that the family is understood best by conceptualizing it as a complex, dynamic, and changing collection of parts, subsystems, and family members.