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Food, risk and place: agency and negotiations of young people with food allergy
Author(s) -
Stjerna MarieLouise
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
sociology of health and illness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1467-9566
pISSN - 0141-9889
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9566.12215
Subject(s) - agency (philosophy) , negotiation , competence (human resources) , environmental health , psychology , public health , social psychology , developmental psychology , business , medicine , sociology , nursing , social science
Potentially life‐threatening food allergies are increasing among children in the Western world. Informed by childhood studies, this article explores young people's management of food allergy risk and highlights their agency in relation to food, eating and place. Drawing on individual interviews with 10 young people who took part in a larger multi‐method study of young people's experiences of food allergies, the findings demonstrate that the management of health risks means, to some extent, trying to control the uncontrollable. A reaction can occur at any time and to experience a severe reaction entails a temporarily loss of control. The strategies the young people develop to avoid allergic reactions can be understood both as responses to this uncertainty and as manifestations of their agency. Their risk experiences vary with place; at school and in other public places they face social as well as health risks. What we see is not agency as a voluntary choice but that young people with food allergies experience tensions between their own competence to manage different types of risks and their dependence on others to adjust to their needs. Thus, the relational aspects of young people's agency come to the fore.