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The circulation of children among family members can have a dramatic impact on child health, contributing to the pervasive problem of childhood under-nutrition Vanuatu faces. Kin, particularly elders, have great influence on decisions regarding infant and child feeding practices, as well as with whom the child resides. Intervening kin can dictate the physical relocation of children through informal systems of adoption for varying lengths of time. The impacts this widespread practice has on child health are often overlooked in studies of childhood malnutrition and in public health interventions. In documenting narratives of childhood malnutrition and the circulation of children within Vanuatu households, this paper reveals that informal movements can lead to the hospitalisation of children with diagnoses of ‘failure to thrive’. Bringing to light the hidden circuits of communal childrearing, my paper calls for a reexamination of Western biomedical and nutritional education in the context of an enduring cust...

Visual-narrative elicitation, a process combining photo elicitation and pile sorting in applied medical anthropology, sheds light on food consumption patterns in urban areas of Vanuatu where childhood malnutrition is a persistent problem. Groups of participants took photographs of the foods they feed their children, and the resources and barriers they encounter in accessing foodstuffs. This revealed how imported and local foods are assigned value as "good" or "bad" foods when contributing to dietary diversity and creating appropriate meals for children, particularly in the context of consuming white rice. The process of gathering and working with photographs illuminated the complex negotiations in which caregivers engaged when making food and nutritional choices for their children. At the nexus of visual and medical anthropology, the visual-narrative elicitation process yielded nuanced, comprehensive understandings of how caregivers value the various foods they feed their children.

This article describes how the private problem of food insecurity in Vanuatu becomes public when children seek community feasts to cope with inadequate family food resources. Ethnographic data reveal that community members, particularly women who serve food at feasts, are increasingly aware of the rise in hungry children attending feasts. This is the subject of gossip, as public eating becomes a way that children inadvertently reveal private pain and familial struggle. Data illustrate that negotiating the public and private space in which food insecurity is displayed and communicated is a critical lens for understanding how eating behaviors shape cultural identities.