For Melissa Fuster, our relationship with eating isn’t as simple as sitting down for a meal.
An associate professor of social, behavioral, and population sciences at Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Fuster explores that complexity in looking at the role food plays in Hispanic Caribbean communities in New York City and across the country.
It’s a passion that’s been evolving since her time at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, from which she earned her Ph.D. in 2013.
“We don't tend to really look at historical and resulting structural factors in nutrition. But the way [people in these communities] spoke about food,” said Fuster of her research on the ground, “it became very clear it was influenced by past experience and historical events.
Fuster is determined to provide this broader context. Inspired by her discoveries and her own lived experience migrating from Puerto Rico to Miami at age 21, she released her book, Caribeños at the Table: How Migration, Health, and Race intersect in New York City, last year.
While studies show that Hispanic Caribbeans across the U.S. are at greater risk of developing diet-related diseases (including obesity and diabetes) than non-Hispanic whites, Caribeños at the Table steps back to look at the bigger picture. It analyzes social and environmental factors that contribute to these health inequities, like loss of land, proximity to violence and other political conflict as well as institutional barriers to resources including job opportunities, education, and high-quality healthcare.