Fruggies Vietnam
Being the capital city of Vietnam with 7.68 million inhabitants and more than 5 million motorbikes, Hanoi is always noisy, smoky and above all lively. Between all the parked motorbikes on the pavements, there are plenty of street food vendors, local street markets and ladies who sell different varieties of exotic fruits from baskets on their bicycles. For just 20,000 VND, which is about 75 euro cents or 86 dollar cents, you can get the most delicious Vietnamese snacks and dishes. After getting seated on a 30 centimeter high (or low; however you interpret it) plastic stool at one of the many street corners in the city, you can order one of the delicious traditional Vietnamese dishes like phở, bún chả, bánh mì or mì rau trứng.
Since the late 1980s after the Vietnam War, the now unified country has gone through major developments. About 20 to 30 years ago all those 5 million motorbikes used to be bicycles, which already indicates the speed in which Vietnamese economy is developing. These changes also have their effect on the Vietnamese food culture, which results in a nutrition transition. And despite a great variety of healthy and delicious foods being available, the Vietnamese population still suffers from nutrition and health-related obstacles. Because of the nutrition transition, typical health threats in low income countries, such as undernutrition and infectious diseases, are shifting to those typical for higher income countries, such as overweight and non-communicable diseases. Since Vietnam is still in the middle of its developments, both types of health problems exist at the same time which causes a triple burden of malnutrition: undernutrition, overnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies.
In a changing environment, the low income population often suffers most. They have least capital to adjust to those changes which make them vulnerable. Therefore, it is very important to keep an eye on this part of the population and make sure that healthy diets are maintained. Fruit and vegetables are key in a healthy and nutritious diet, which is why the focus of this study is on fruit and vegetable consumption in the urban low-income population in Hanoi, and specifically in Ha Dong district. Ha Dong is situated at the South-Western edge of Hanoi where the hectic tumult of the city makes room for the more quiet countryside. The quantity of poor and near-poor households is relatively high in this district, which makes it suitable for the study. More specifically, the study focuses on intra-household differences in fruit and vegetable intake between the sexes. To get more insight in the ‘why’ behind these differences, this study will try to link gender related drivers, such as motivations, challenges and traditional household role division to female and male fruit and vegetable consumption behavior.
Want to know more about the study I talked about? Feel free to contact me :)