Food stories

This is what children around the world eat in a week

You are what you eat, as the saying goes. But what exactly does that look like? Photographer Gregg Segal shows us in a wonderfully creative way in his photo series ‘Daily Bread’.

Foto van culinair journalist Steffi Posthumus

door Steffi Posthumus

Gregg traveled all over the world to photograph children from a wide range of cultures. He asked them to keep track of what they ate for a week, then photographed them surrounded by those foods.

Over the course of three years, Gregg visited nine different countries (the US, India, Malaysia, Germany, France, Italy, Senegal, the United Arab Emirates and Brazil). The result can be seen in the book ‘Daily Bread: What Kids Eat Around the World’.

Fast food as a status symbol

The differences are enormous: not only between the different countries, but also within the countries themselves. “As people in the West gradually become more conscious of healthy eating, major fast-food chains are investing heavily in developing countries. Awareness of this is still less widespread there, and eating at one of these chains is seen primarily as a status symbol.”

Message

With the book, Gregg hopes to make people more aware of their diet. Not only their own diet, but especially that of their children. “Eating habits start at a young age. If you don’t get used to a healthy diet when you’re 9 or 10, it becomes much more difficult when you’re older,” he says.