ResearchResearch and Professional BriefAssociations among Food Insecurity, Acculturation, Demographic Factors, and Fruit and Vegetable Intake at Home in Hispanic Children
Section snippets
Procedure
A cross-sectional study design was used for the pilot study. The Human Subjects Review Boards at the University of Texas School of Public Health and the University of South Carolina approved the study. Because no form of identifying information was collected for the study, the Human Subjects Review determined that obtaining informed consent was not needed and a cover letter was adequate for the purpose of the study. This letter and a questionnaire assessing demographics, acculturation level,
Results and Discussion
Descriptive characteristics of the study sample are presented in Table 1. This study examined the relationship among acculturation, food insecurity, demographic factors, and Hispanic children's fruit and vegetable intake at home. Twelve hundred questionnaires were delivered to the three elementary schools, of which 209 complete surveys were returned. Eighty-eight percent of the respondents were Hispanic (n=184), 7.7 % were white, and 2.9% identified as another racial/ethnic group. Almost 95% of
Conclusion
Despite these limitations, our results demonstrate that in this low-income minority population, level of acculturation and food insecurity are significantly associated with children's fruit and vegetable intake. Interventions are needed for those individuals who are more acculturated, as well as for less-acculturated individuals, with the goal of not changing their healthful “old” dietary patterns.
The findings reported here indicate that public health and dietary education efforts that address
J. M. Dave is a postdoctoral associate, USDA/ARS Children's Nutrition Research Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
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Executive summary
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2022, AppetiteCitation Excerpt :Given that maternal acculturation is negatively associated with dietary quality (e.g., Ayala et al., 2008; Creighton et al., 2012; Dave et al., 2009; Neuhouser et al., 2004), we expected that children's general, top-down self-regulation would be more important for weight regulation in children who faced the challenges of a more acculturated, and therefore more obesogenic, food home environment. One possible explanation for this unexpected finding is that although children's general, top-down, self-regulation may play a role in childhood obesity in less acculturated home environments (where the home food environment results in lower risk for the development of childhood obesity), children's general, top-down self-regulation may become less important in more acculturated environments, where the risk for the development of weight gain is higher (e.g., fewer fruits and vegetables; less rice; more soda; and more fast food, cheese, and/or high calorie snacks—Ayala et al., 2008; Creighton et al., 2012; Dave et al., 2009; Neuhouser et al., 2004), therefore overriding the influence of children's general, top-down self-regulation. It is also possible that the relationship between self-regulation and weight status is curvilinear, with self-regulation being most important in moderately obesogenic environments.
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2021, Journal of the American Dental AssociationSkin Carotenoid Scores Assessed with Reflection Spectroscopy Are Associated with Self-Reported Fruit and Vegetable Intake Among Latino Early Adolescents
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J. M. Dave is a postdoctoral associate, USDA/ARS Children's Nutrition Research Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
A. E. Evans is an associate professor, Michael & Susan Dell Center for Advancement of Healthy Living, University of Texas School of Public Health, Austin
R. P. Saunders is an associate professor and K. W. Watkins is a clinical associate professor, Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior, Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, Columbia
K. A. Pfeiffer is an assistant professor, Department of Kinesiology, Michigan State University, East Lansing