What´s Oral History?

In order to gain an impression of how lifestyle has changed in UAE, I interviewed my grandmother about her lifestyle in the terms of nutrition and physical activity during the time when she was in primary school.

My grandmother was born in 1961 and grew up in a small village. Her mother was a housewife and her father was a police officer. They had a vegetable farm and date palm tree and also kept camels, goats and chickens.

The food was very simple and there were a lot of imported foods from India and Oman such as fruit and rice; but grandmother diet was almost healthy. For breakfast she used to have seven pieces of dates, brown bread with milk. She was taking Paratha bread which her mother was making it at home to school for her lunch, with cheese in it. In the evening she usually used to eat rice with milk, honey with bread, lentils. In winter they were preferring to eat salad. They only had one hot meal per day.

They were eating a lot of rice and dates. The rice came from India in the summer and the storage for winter. Most vegetables and dates came from her father farm. In addit...