The Privilege of Healthy Eating: A Qualitative Study Exploring the Local Food Choices of Low-Income Families from Appalachia

Using qualitative semi-structured interviews, 15 low-income women of different ages were asked to discuss their perceptions of healthy eating, local farmers’ markets, as well as their visitation of farmers’ markets. The participants were also asked to share what features of farmers’ markets they found appealing. The results showed that most of the participants had either a deep or moderate understanding of what it means to eat healthy. However, many of them also believed they could improve their own patterns of eating. The data also showed that the low-income women who took part in the study had positive attitudes overall toward local farmers’ markets, despite rather low levels of visitation (only 5 participants had visited farmers’ market at least once and only one of them visited farmers’ market on a regular basis). Lastly, participants discussed constraints that prevented them from visiting farmers’ markets more often and provided suggestions for possible facilitators to increase the frequency of their use of farmers’ markets