Cultural materialism is a way of studying how people live and how they make things in their lives. Imagine you are building a house made of Legos. You need Legos to build the walls, but you also need things like glue and nails to hold the Legos together. These things that you need that aren't Legos are called "materials."
Cultural materialism is like looking at all the materials that people use to build their lives - not just Legos, but also things like money, tools, and food. By looking at these materials, we can learn about how people live and what's important to them.
Sometimes people use different materials depending on where they live or what's available to them. For example, people who live in very cold places might use different materials to build their houses than people who live in very hot places.
Cultural materialism helps us understand how people's lives are shaped by the materials they have and the things they make with them. It also helps us understand how different cultures and societies have developed over time.