Dr. Lesley Frank (’95) is CCPA-NS Research Associate and Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Acadia University. Her research examines the barriers mothers and their infants face in terms of food access (barriers to both breastfeeding and optimal/affordable alternatives to breastfeeding) when living in conditions of household food insecurity. The study of infant food insecurity is emerging as an important scholarly field bridging together understanding from the domains of nutrition, health and social/health equity policy to address factors unique to marginalized populations. A Harrison McCain grant was used to advance this research.

All of Dr. Frank’s research centres on questions related to food justice, particularly for families with infants and young children. She conducted her first research project on Infant Food Insecurity in 2011 and found that food insecurity introduced vulnerabilities related to both breastfeeding and access to breast milk alternatives. Her next study, in 2015, found that most food banks and family resource centres cannot adequately respond to requests for infant food from food insecure families. This allowed her to expose a virtually unknown consequence whereby mothers have turned to social media to meet their infant’s food needs, engaging in searching for free formula, selling unused formula, trading, and helping others by giving away formula and breastmilk.

The research provided an opportunity for two undergraduate students to gain technical skills in the growing field of Digital Sociology and the use of qualitative analysis software. Together, Dr. Frank and her students monitored Facebook groups in Nova Scotia and on Kijiji throughout Canada for 11 months. The students became experts in real time online observation, data capture and content analysis aimed to document and describe a digital food environment by mapping the trends of peer-to-peer infant food distribution (selling, trading, seeking, and sharing).

This research is important because it exposes serious problems of unequal food access and potential food risk that are unique to mothers and infants in food insecure households. It adds to the evidence that household food insecurity is disruptive to optimal infant feeding practice and maternal food work, and shows that special health equity policy is needed support the work of feeding the baby that aligns with principles of food justice.

“I greatly appreciate the support from the Harrison McCain Foundation to further the urgent work needed on this understudied and important topic,” Dr. Frank says. “I could not have done the project without the funding as it required human resources, equipment to do online observation, and the software licenses necessary for analysis. Funding was also used to disseminate research results at two international conferences: the International Sociological Association (Toronto, July 2018) in a session on Studying Family Life, Digital Technologies, and Social Media; and upcoming at the International Food Studies Conference (Vancouver, October 2018) in a session on Digital Food Cultures.”