Day 1 of 5
On the first day, 56 women introduced themselves: five words for who they are, the illnesses they live with and watch others live with, and what lands on their plate on an ordinary day, and why. Almost every answer about herself turned, sooner or later, into an answer about the people she feeds.
What they were asked
What we heard
Asked to introduce themselves, most women began with other people: children and grandchildren, a partner, a parent they look after, a sister who lives with them. Only then did they describe themselves, and the words they chose were warm. “Funny” came first.
The same evening they told us what is on their plate. The answers were rarely about nutrients. They were about time, money, energy and the tastes of the people at the table. Fourteen of 56 described skipping or barely eating a meal, almost always because there was no time, not because they were dieting.
One reading is that the first day already holds the study's central finding. These women know that food shapes health. What they are short of is not knowledge but room: hours, dollars, energy, and permission to count themselves among the people being fed.
I cook for my family so it's easier to eat they are eating.
Five words for herself
Her exact words, as she typed them. The most common: funny (18 of 56), outgoing (15), friendly (14), caring (12), loving and kind (10 each) and loyal (9). Light: quieter words some women also chose for themselves.
What's on her plate
We asked what we would find on each woman's plate on a typical day, and why. Most answered with the whole day around the plate: who eats first, what is cheapest, what there is time for. Six women, two from each community, in their own words.
meat, egg (with cheese), potato, and a bread of some sort.
normally nothing or what my kids are eating (corn dogs, Mac and cheese, chicken nuggets). These things are cheaper.
normally a meat, veggie, carb (rice, pasta, potato, etc.) This is nmost affordable for us.
Nothing named
I cook for my family so it's easier to eat they are eating.
cereal fruit skim milk
salad with protein nuts and veggies
protein vegetable carbs
almonds, fruit
These choices give me the energy to make it through the day, keep a good blood sugar level and don't make me feel sluggish or heavy
It really depends on what my husband wants lol
most often I skip lunch and wait until dinner to eat.
most often I try to cook something that incorporates vegetables into the dish like Beef and broccoli with white rice.
the times we do treat ourselves, we bake cookies with the kids and end the night with a cup of milk.
by the time I'm done making them lunch, I'm too tired to eat myself and end up taking a nap with my baby.
avocado toast/tostones to a quick baked good (scones, cereal bars, etc).
a sandwich, leftovers from the week, or my children's scraps/school lunch as to avoid food waste.
Our homecooked dinner staples are rice and beans, steak, pork chops, shrimp, assorted pastas/veggies.
Nothing named
I've been cooking non stop due to covid and lately have opted for a pre-made solutions from being burnt out.
breakfast haha youre funny (as if i had time?)
lunch during the week is a drive thru.
dinner i cook myself.
snacks once in a while. i try to not pig out.
Chicken is cheaper haha and I can stretch it.
Nothing named
Nothing named
Nothing named
Sometimes I'll have chips or something sweet.
Rice and meat. I eat it all day. About a cup every 4 hours and try not to veer off that.
I work a lot to try and cook everyday.
Women describing each in their typical day, of 56 who answered on Day 1. A woman could describe more than one. Across the whole diary, at least 9 women described eating last or eating whatever the family eats.
Food personality
Women using each kind of word for her “food personality”, of 56. A woman could use more than one kind. One reading: one woman in five used a harsh word for her own eating, and several of the same women wrote, a day later, about how tired they were.
Food personality, in her words
Each line is one woman's five words, exactly as she wrote them. Bold: pleasure, curiosity and care. Light: the harder words some women chose for themselves.
Her health, and her family's
There's a lot of pain daily. I don't let it limit me. … Tomorrow isn't promised and I'm not letting pain limit the joys of life.
As a child, I couldn't understand why they couldn't play with us like some other grandparents could
Of 56 women on Day 1, choosing from a list; a woman could choose more than one. “Another condition” was most often a mental-health or pain condition. Her own conditions follow age closely; see the lenses below before comparing communities.
Watching it happen
By seeing up and close and not just hearing it, it changes your perspective.
since my mom passed away from heart disease there's a sense from all of us that we need to do more to be healthy.
I often spoke to her about diet, excersize and how she didn't have to become dependent on the medication. However she didn't listen so here we are.
its pains me that they are going thru health challenges and motives me to get healthier
I constantly worry I am such a natural caregiver so I feel very worthless not being able to help her.
I'm the one my family relies on when it comes to health care.
Health in her days
My health effects my kids so if I'm not in good health how my gonna be provided for anyone else let along my kids.
I am looking to loose weight so I can be HEALTHY and able to interact more with my grandbabies without being tired or unable to keep up.
I would luv to run or go skating with my family n friends, but I cant bc of my shortness of breath.
Some times it's depressing some times it's not I still get up daily an take care of my Family
I do the best I can and try to laugh snd make others laugh
my doctor was really surprised and said that I was healthier than him, a thin man.
Food and health
We asked how strongly each woman agreed that “our food choices impact our health”. Fifty-three of 56 agreed, 41 of them strongly. No one disagreed. Eleven reached, unprompted, for the same old phrase: you are what you eat.
The three who stayed neutral were not denying the link. One was tired of diets that had not worked for her. Another said her family had “been eating the same food since forever”. A third wrote, simply, “It depends on the person”.
Several women named the gap between knowing and doing themselves. One had studied nutrition in college: “I say that and I am not doing that in person.” Another, living with a long-term illness, put the gap in six words: energy and money run short.
One reading: what stands between these women and the way they want to eat is rarely information. It is the time, money and energy to act on what they already know.
when i eat junk food i feel sleepy and sluggish but when i eat fruits and vegetables i feel energetic
Energy and money is lacking when you have a disease
Lenses
The three communities in this study also differ in age and household income, so a difference between groups may be a difference of life stage or money. We show a comparison only where it holds, with the number of women behind it.
Across communities
In every community, most women knew chronic illness up close. Fifteen of 20 Black women and 15 of 22 Latina women named at least one chronic condition in a parent, grandparent, sibling or child, most often diabetes and high blood pressure together. Six of 14 White women did.
The difference partly holds once age is taken into account: White women named fewer family conditions among both the youngest and the oldest women in the study. Their own illnesses are a different story, and mostly a matter of age (see Across life stages).
Within each community the range is wide. Among the White women, one wrote of a father who “took insulin”, another of a sister just diagnosed with diabetes; among the Black women, one wrote that her family is “all pretty healthy, thankfully.”
Read with care. These are what women chose to report from a checklist. The White women in this study were older and more often lived alone, so who counts as “immediate family” may differ. Counts, not rates; no group here stands for its community.
Across life stages
Women's own chronic conditions tracked age more than community. Three of 20 women aged 25 to 34 named one, against 6 of 17 aged 35 to 44 and 12 of 18 aged 45 to 54. Diabetes and high blood pressure were mostly midlife answers.
Because only 3 of the 22 Latina women were 45 or older, the Latina group's lower count of personal illness largely reflects its youth, not its health.
Younger women are not untouched. One woman in her early 30s wrote of a condition with “no cure”, and of doctors who “brush you off”.
Read with care. Ages come from recruitment records; 55 of the 56 women could be matched. Cells this small are hints, not findings.
Across household means
In the more stretched households, in all three communities, 7 of 28 women described their food in the language of feeling: comfort, sadness, fullness. None of the 27 women in households with a little more room did. They more often called themselves “healthy” or “mindful” eaters (14 of 27, against 6 of 28).
The same split shows in family stories. Only women in the more stretched households described a relative dying of chronic disease (6 of 28), or their own health keeping them from keeping up with their children (5 of 28).
Every pattern has its counter-voice. One woman in a more stretched household described her food as “Healthy, nutritious , light , creative”.
We cannot tell which comes first. Illness and loss can strain a household, and strain can shape how food feels.
Read with care. Household means is estimated from income band and household size, and for 16 of 55 women the band straddles the line. So these are “more stretched” and “a little more room”, never “poor”.
Before the diaries
“I don't have the bandwidth to try and expand or change.”
“When things are falling apart. Eating healthy is not your biggest problem.”
“We're given this machine without any instruction manual”
“women are in a lot of caretaking roles. So therefore they're in roles where they're recommending products for other people”
Where this led
The GAIA Study, 2021
78%SHAKTI informed The GAIA Study, which surveyed 14,626 Americans in the fall of 2021. Among GAIA respondents who had COVID-19 between January 2020 and November 29, 2021, 78% agreed that dietary choices can raise or lower the risk of getting sick. On Day 1, 53 of 56 SHAKTI women had already said, in their own words, that food choices shape health. The questions and the samples differ, so read the two side by side as an echo, not a replication.
The GAIA Study · Fried Minds (Unhealthy with Comorbidity)
18%Ipsos grouped the GAIA respondents who had COVID-19 into five segments. Segment 1, Fried Minds (Unhealthy with Comorbidity), was 18% of them: mostly women, average age 45, living with conditions such as hypertension and diabetes and the most likely to report high stress. GAIA found that Americans with underlying comorbidities tend to have more trouble affording healthy food. The family illness and stretched budgets in these diaries resemble that picture. This is an analogy only: no SHAKTI woman belongs to a GAIA segment.
Project reset. · Rebalance
Time, money and self-talk: counting herself among the people being fed, and lifting the self-blame many women wrote into their own food words.
Project reset. · Nourish
Family-wide meals that fit the budget and the tastes already at the table, instead of a separate plate for her.
Project reset. · Restore
Regular meals and rest as part of care, for the women who skip meals for lack of time and live with pain or fatigue.
The reset. connection
Project reset., the film's educational impact campaign, helps people move from burnout to resilience through five pathways: Nourish, Restore, Move, Connect and Rebalance. Day 1 speaks to three of them.
Rebalance comes first. The women did not lack knowledge: 53 of 56 linked food and health before anyone asked them to. What they lacked was time, money and permission to count themselves among the people being fed. Rebalance works on that burnout, and on the self-blame that 12 of 56 wrote into their own food words, without adding one more standard to meet.
Nourish follows. Their plates are family plates, built around other people's tastes and budgets. A Nourish step that fits these lives feeds the whole table, not a separate “healthy” plate she has no time to make.
Restore sits underneath. Fourteen women skip meals for lack of time, and many live with pain, fatigue or low mood. Rest and regular meals are part of care, not a reward for finishing it.
One practical first step, in the women's own direction: one woman asked for “A buddy to check in or workout with - someone who understands the struggle of staying on the wagon.” Start there, and start small. Pick one meal a day she sits down to eat, cooked for everyone, herself included, and tell one person she trusts that she is doing it.
The five pathways · lit where this points
Where does your reset. begin?
Women whose stories live on this day
SHAKTI