Parenting issues surrounding food and nutrition among Hmong immigrants in the Central Valley, CA

Adapting to American culture has led to intergenerational conflict as children are exposed to both American culture and to a more traditional home environment. This conflict has impact on diverse aspects of parenting, ranging from disciplinary issues to preferences for American or traditional Hmong foods. The focus of this study was to conduct formative research to collect data for development of parenting messages related to food, physical activity and overweight prevention in children. While economic and social factors in the United States are encouraging the limitation of family size, it is still very common to have a family size of 6 or more. This presents a unique situation, particularly for the addressing topic areas such as families eating together. Four bilingual, bicultural Hmong moderators were trained to conduct focus groups. Subjects were recruited from agencies serving the Hmong and local churches. Focus groups lasted about an hour and were conducted in Hmong. Forty-six women and men participated in the focus groups. Thirty three were born in Laos, 11 in Thailand and 2 in the U.S. Topics included parents concerns or lack of concern about their overweight children, cultural attitudes towards overweight children, perspective on play or exercise, “good foods, bad foods”, decision making responsibility about food choices and families eating together. The data from these groups was used to help prevent program developers from making inappropriate and insensitive messages, particularly related to overweight or obesity in children. The information collected also provided background and support data for the development of messaging for a video produced for use with a healthy eating curriculum for Hmong families.