Yarning about Diet: The Applicability of Dietary Assessment Methods in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians—A Scoping Review

Abstract

Conventional dietary assessment methods are based predominately on Western models which lack Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges, methodologies, and social and cultural contextualisation. This review considered dietary assessment methods used with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations and assessed their applicability. Four electronic databases and grey literature were searched with no time limit applied to the results. Screening, data extraction and quality appraisal were undertaken independently by two reviewers. Out of 22 studies, 20 were conducted in rural/remote settings, one in an urban setting, and one at the national population level. The most frequently used and applicable dietary assessment method involved store data. Weighed food records and food frequency questionnaires had low applicability. Modifications of conventional methods were commonly used to adapt to Indigenous practices, but few studies incorporated Indigenous research methodologies such as yarning. This highlights an opportunity for further investigation to validate the accuracy of methods that incorporate qualitative yarning-based approaches, or other Indigenous research methodologies, into quantitative data collection. The importance of developing validated dietary assessment methods that are appropriate for this population cannot be understated considering the high susceptibility to nutrition-related health conditions such as malnutrition, overweight or obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

Improving economic access to healthy diets in first nations communities in high-income, colonised countries: a systematic scoping review

“…The co-design workshop with members of the NPYWC A n angu research team and service providers held in Alice Springs in Central Australia in November 2022 provided the opportunity to privilege First Nations’ perspectives while collectively considering the findings of the literature review. Recently, our team’s Indigenist research methodologies, including ‘yarning’, have been commended in a relevant scoping review [ 69 ]. A copy of the presentation of the findings is included at Supplementary File 3 .…”