Daily Bread Favorite 

Practitioner: 

Date: 

Jun 4 2019

Location: 

All over the world

Gregg Segal -- a California-based artist who is known for using the medium of photography to explore culture with the "sensibility of a sociologist" -- travelled around the world asking kids to keep a journal of everything they ate in a week. Once the week was up, Segal made a portrait of the child with the food arranged around them:
"I’m focusing on kids because eating habits, which form when we’re young, last a lifetime and often pave the way to chronic health problems like diabetes, heart disease and colon cancer.

Despite growing awareness here in the US about the harm of eating processed foods, awareness hasn’t yet led to widespread change. Obesity rates are still soaring. 40 years ago, 1 out of 40 kids were obese. Today, 10 in 40 are. Since corn syrup came along, the incidence of diabetes has tripled. For the first time in many generations, life expectancy in America is declining and the main culprit is empty calories.

I’ve been encouraged to find regions and communities where slow food will never be displaced by junk food, where home cooked meals are the bedrock of family and culture, where love and pride are sensed in the aromas of broths, stews and curries. When the hand that stirs the pot is mom or dad, grandma or grandma, kids are healthier. The deeper goal of Daily Bread is to be a catalyst for change and link to a growing, grassroots community that is moving the needle on diet

External sources: 

https://www.greggsegal.com/P-Projects/Daily-Bread/1/caption
Posted by lucieconjeaud on Apr 22 2024

Staff rating: 

0

Effectiveness

How does this project help?

Amplifies (issue or campaign)Brings public and political attention to an issue or campaign.  Can include prefigurative action, making the invisible visible.
Shifts (culture)Shifts the cultural landscape in order to imagine and enable change.
Strengthens (community)Strengthens, builds and celebrates community through ritual and/or symbol.

Timeframe For change

This project seems to be part of a campaign with a clear short-term goal. Short-term goals tend to be things like: create or repeal a law; get a President impeached; make the city administration repair a sidewalk. A campaign with a short-term goal needs a clear theory of change, complete with targets that can be cajoled or pressured into effecting the goal.
The artist's short-term goal was to record the spectrum of diets eaten here and in other parts of the world.
This project seems to be part of a campaign with a clear long-term goal. Long-term goals tend to be things like: end racism; end homophobia; make the sun stand still in the sky. A campaign with a long-term goal also needs to have some kind of theory of change.
The long-term goal of the project is to amply awareness of health and sustainability on both a personal and global scale, highlighting the harm of globalization in relation to food and diet. The project also challenges preconceived notions about developed versus undeveloped countries, shedding a photographical light on what children all over the world actually eat. he deeper goal of Daily Bread is to be a catalyst for change and link to a growing, grassroots community that is moving the needle on diet.

Notes

I believe the project was effective to the extent that the book was published and received a solid amount of attention. Gregg Segal was very successful in completing his short-term goal of recording the spectrum of diets eaten here and in other parts of the world. However, the long-term goal of the book is to be a catalyst for change in terms of our relationship to food and diet is much more difficult to measure.