Women Roles for Healthy Lifestyles through Good Foods

Abstract

. As a patriarchal society, in Indonesia women play important roles for domestic work, especially cooking. Many females tend to ignore the sorting and processing of foods for their daily consumption. Food is the basic need for human being, but it is not used to its full potential. People only eat to feel full and happy and forget about the benefits that food can provide. Taste, predilection for local foods, and availability control the food’s selection. Lack of awareness of good food for health and happiness results in the government campaign of “Healthy Lifestyle (Gerakan Masyarakat Hidup Sehat) or let food be thy medicine. This research will describe female knowledge of local and healthy food staples, fruits, vegetables, and the menus they have, and analyze women preferences in choosing menu and preparation, their perception of good food, as well knowledge of healthy lifestyle, such as organic issue. This qualitative research collected data from online survey with questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and communication through WhatsApp and emails. To acquire data of participant‘s knowledge and experiences, lists of food staples, vegetables, fruits, and menus was sent to be filled out whether they recognize, consume, like, cook, or grow them. Question about healthy and organic foods tried to find their knowledge and perception since they were decisive in preparing healthy and happy future generation. Forty-five participants representative of 15 career women, 15 housewife, and 15 female students/graduates in Pekanbaru, Riau were collected with purposive sampling. Finding reveals in some circumstances females do not recognize tropical natural foodstuffs so they do not consume healthy vegetables and fruits that are good to improve immunity. Knowledge and awareness of organic foods and healthy foods are low and therefore diet is only for feeling full, like, happy, or even prestigious.