Repasts: A life course approach to hunger in later life

The general tendency within sociology to study older people in terms of their social group, and poverty in terms of its ecological context, has resulted in less attention being paid to how older people understand and accommodate the material deprivations of poverty. Yet a closer look at these deprivations, and how their experience can vary over the life course, may shed light on the social foundations of negative health outcomes not easily explained by low socioeconomic status alone.;Although it might be assumed that many older people who qualify for food stamps and live alone experience a set of difficulties like worrying about food or skipping meals, only about 12% of these seniors do. Moreover, there are important gender differences in this group. Poor women who live alone are less likely to have this set of difficulties than poor men who live alone. The reason for this difference is thought to be because women have more robust social networks on average. They live alone but they don't necessarily eat alone.;This issue of how someone eats, in contrast to what someone eats, represents one of the many factors that contribute to the social sources of the health gradient --- a growing area of scholarship that seeks to understand the social and symbolic resources available for healthy aging.;This dissertation uses a life course approach to examine how a group of very low-income senior women living in supportive housing in an urban setting avoid food hardships. Non-economic resources that may attenuate hunger risk are identified and a person-centered theoretical model for future food security research in poor and non-poor populations is presented.