Sorting it Out: Adolescent Refugee's Perceptions of Food Upon Arrival to the US.

Objective: To explore the meanings that newly-arrived refugee adolescents residing in the Southeast U.S. attribute to foods.

Design: We used methods from cognitive anthropology to assess whether adolescents from different countries share a cultural model of eating behaviors.

Setting: A school-based study in a community in the Southeastern U.S.

Participants: Adolescents (10-17 years) who arrived in the US on a refugee visa in the previous year.

Results: Adolescents showed consensus in grouping items and in identifying some foods as associated with adults and others with children. There was evidence of a shared model of eating practices across age, gender, and number of siblings. Adolescents who had lived in a refugee camp were significantly different in how they grouped items.

Conclusions: Adolescents from 9 countries shared a model of eating behaviors; these patterns are consistent with rapid dietary acculturation within one year of arrival or with shared models held from pre-arrival. Our finding that adolescents who recently arrived in the U.S. generally agree about how foods relate to one another holds promise for generalized nutrition and dietary interventions across diverse adolescent groups.