The Visual and Cultural Context of Health Body Weight and Body Image among Aboriginal Women in the Battlefords Tribal Council Region

Sylvia Abonyi - Co-Investigator

This 3 year community based research project will identify, analyze and disseminate local knowledge about the cultural and visual contexts of healthy body weight and healthy body image from the perspective of rural Aboriginal women.  This research is important for the following reasons:

• obesity and its associated health risks have been identified as areas of concern for Aboriginal women;
• little is known about the visual, gendered, historical and cultural meanings or experiences of healthy body weight and healthy body image for Aboriginal women; and
• the complex intersections between the physical body and socio-cultural experiences have also been underresearched. 

Understanding Aboriginal women’s perspectives requires an approach to research that is participatory, community based and empowering.  An ideal setting for this research is within the seven rural communities in the Battleford Tribal Council Region (BTC) near the urban centre of North Battleford, Saskatchewan. 

Through support from the Indigenous People’s Health Research Centre (IPHRC), the proposed research builds on already-established team capacity and pilot data.  To date, we have successfully: 

• established a research strategy and research team comprised of community members from the BTC region, community health care staff of Battleford Tribal Council Indian Health Services (BTCIHS) and university researchers from the University of Saskatchewan;
• developed a bibliographic database of relevant research literature; and 
• consulted with key community members to establish the current research plan and to collect pilot data about BTC women’s perspectives regarding healthy body weight and healthy body image. 

In this community consultation, we found that the meanings of the ‘healthy body’ were inextricably connected to cultural, historical, visual and gendered experiences.  We also found that community health services could be improved upon by integrating a better understanding of women’s experiences.  Moreover, our consultation suggested that the research methodology must be participatory and empowering for Aboriginal women.

Our  approach will be grounded directly in the experiences of our participants and collaborators, thereby ensuring the process and findings are meaningful to the community.  This research will build capacity in Aboriginal health in Saskatchewan, but our findings will also be relevant to Aboriginal communities across Canada.  Moreover, the participation of BTCIHS community health care staff will ensure that the finding of our research can be implemented with respect to health care policies and practices.