Information on the meaning systems underlying body, food, eating, and health for many
ethnic cultures within North American society is limited. Existing research suggests that the
meaning systems for body, food, eating, and health for most ethnic cultures differ from those of
the host North American culture. Despite the growing Filipino Canadian population, no
information was found for this ethnic group with regard to these issues. With an increased
understanding of Filipino Canadian culture, health professionals working with women of Filipino
Canadian ethnicity will have the tools needed to provide culturally sensitive care. Therefore, the
objective of this thesis was to increase the understanding of the culture of Filipino Canadian
women as it pertains to body, food, eating, and health.
The qualitative research paradigm was chosen to explore the culture of Filipino Canadian
women because, as opposed to quantitative research where the goals are to verify, predict, and
control, the goals of qualitative research are to explain, discover, understand, and generate
theories. The processes of sampling, data collection, and data analysis occured simultaneously
throughout the research process. Sampling was purposive in that informants were chosen
according to certain characteristics in order to highlight similarities and differences between
informants. The informants consisted of first generation Filipino Canadian women from 19 to 30
years old who were born in the Philippines to parents of Filipino heritage. Data were collected
from eleven informants by conducting semi-structured open-ended interviews. Preliminary data
analysis guided subsequent sampling of participants, interviews, and analysis strategies. Later
analysis stages involved the development of the major themes using domain and taxonomic
analyses. Several steps were taken to ensure the trustworthiness of the research. First, peer
debriefing, negative case analyses, and member checks were used to establish the credibility of the
emergent themes. Second, rich descriptions of the context were provided in order to aid in the
transferability of the findings. Third, an inquiry audit was conducted in order to establish the
dependability of the research process and confirmability of the findings.
The majority of informants valued thinness, valued the concept of "watching" fat, rice and
sweet, salty, and junk food intake, and were concerned about minimizing disease risk. These
views were associated with "Canadian" culture. On the other hand, a minority valued fatness,
valued the concept of "just eating" fat and rice, and revealed a concern with maximizing disease
resistance. These views were associated with "Filipino" culture. Although the findings suggested
that the informants were fairly well assimilated into the host North American culture, evidence
does exist which shows that most of them experienced the conflict of the "Filipino" and
"Canadian" cultural systems.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/3785 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Farrales, Lynn Labrador |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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