142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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Nutritional Strategies of Latino Farmworker Families with Young Children: Identifying Leverage Points for Obesity Prevention

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Sunday, November 16, 2014

Grisel Trejo, MPH , Division of Public Health Sciences, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC
Thomas A. Arcury, PhD , Department of Family and Community Medicine, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC
Joseph G. Grzywacz, PhD , Department of Human Development & Family Science, Oklahoma State University, Tulsa, OK
Sara A. Quandt, PhD , Division of Public Health Sciences, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC
Introduction: Children of migrant and seasonal Latino farmworkers in the US constitute a medically-underserved population with high prevalence of obesity and overweight.  Households in this health-disparate population develop nutritional strategies in the context of resources and environmental and cultural factors.  This study (1) identifies and describes the components of such nutritional strategies in East Coast farmworker families with young children, and (2) specifies leverage points for preventing obesity.

Methods:  In-depth interviews were conducted with 33 farmworker mothers of 2-5 year olds recruited in North Carolina.  Interviews focused on practices, beliefs, and constraints related to child feeding.  Thematic analysis identified nutritional strategy components.  From these strategies, leverage points in household behaviors and community programs are identified and their potential impacts on the development of obesity are specified.

Results:  Core components of nutritional strategies are practices for procuring food (purchase, home production, childcare meals), using food (cooking styles, meal/snack patterns), and maintaining food security (managing income fluctuations by rationing and reducing costs, protecting children).  Cultural factors (values and beliefs about food and child feeding, exposure to nutrition education) shape the content of nutritional strategies. Resources (personal, from social networks and formal services), shaped by environmental factors (poor housing, rural isolation, migration), limit enacting nutritional strategies.  Eight leverage points for preventing child obesity are identified.  These can be implemented at the level of formal services directed toward farmworkers, as well as with health education provided directly to farmworker families.

Conclusion:  Understanding nutritional strategies of farmworker families is imperative to designing obesity prevention programs.

Learning Areas:

Epidemiology
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health or related education
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
Describe the concept of nutritional strategy. Delineate components of nutritional strategies enacted by mothers in farmworker families. Identify possible leverage points in the nutritional strategies to prevent child obesity.

Keyword(s): Obesity, Immigrant Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the project manager for the Children Health Disparity (Niņos Sanos) project and I have worked on conducting health education research with Latino immigrant communities, data collection, and analysis.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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