Eat to Live, Don’t Live to Eat: Black Men, Masculinity, Faith and Food

Letisha Engracia Cardoso Brown
Additional contact information
Letisha Engracia Cardoso Brown: Department of Sociology, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24060, USA

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 12, 1-13

Abstract: Men often have poorer health outcomes than women. In the United States, Black men in particular tend to have worse health than not only Black women but other racial/ethnic groups of men. One factor that contributes to health is the role of masculinity. Previous research notes that men who cling to hegemonic notions of masculine identity tend to engage in negative health behaviors. However, hegemonic masculinity is not the realm in which Black men exist. Criminalized, surveilled, and subject to structural racism and racial discrimination, Black masculinities exist on their own spectrum separate from that of White men. One characteristic associated with Black masculinity is that of faith, and faith is a growing field of study with respect to health. This paper examines the relationship between Black masculinity as framed by faith in shaping the food and eating habits of Black men. Food and eating are central to health and well-being yet remain understudied with respect to Black masculinity through the lens of faith. This study offers a qualitative account of Black men’s experiences through the use of in-depth interview data. The key finding of this study is that fasting operates as a mechanism of health promotion for Black men. This paper utilizes the term Black men as an all-encompassing term of members of the African diaspora as opposed to African American in order to recognize the diversity of the participants in this study.

Keywords: Black men; masculinity; faith; food; health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/12/4264/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/12/4264/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:12:p:4264-:d:371716

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().