FACTORS INFLUENCING DIETARY CHOICES OF IMMIGRANTS UPON RESETTLEMENT IN HOST COUNTRIES - A SCOPING REVIEW

The adverse effects of migration on eating habits are well documented. Accessing healthy, culturally appropriate food is essential for achieving food security and overall health. However, less is known about the factors that affect post-immigration dietary choices. This scoping review assesses current findings regarding factors determining dietary choices. Electronic databases of papers published between 2005 and 2015 were used to retrieve and review papers for this review. Titles were reviewed by three reviewers to select papers that met the inclusion criterion set for this paper. A total of 50 papers were eventually selected and included in the review. Based on the work done in South Africa and internationally, various factors that affect dietary choices of immigrants were identified and include: climate change related factors, socio-economic factors, difficulty in navigating the new shopping environment, immigrant's perceptions towards host country's food, language barriers, failure to access traditional ingredients, safety of food sold in the ethnic markets, pressure from children to adopt host country's food and role of religion in determining immigrant's food choices in host countries. Findings of this study demonstrate that there are major research gaps on dietary patterns of sub-Saharan African immigrants, and identifies research priorities in this field.