Research ArticleFood Group Categories of Low-income African American Women
Introduction
Only 10% of Americans consume diets that correspond to the United States Dietary Guidelines, as measured by the Healthy Eating Index.1, 2 Among Americans, low-income African Americans have the lowest Healthy Eating Index scores as well as the highest prevalence of obesity.1, 2, 3 Low-income African Americans could substantially decrease their risk of many chronic diseases by following dietary guidelines.1 African Americans, particularly those with lower incomes, face broad economic and political barriers to eating healthfully, such as the high cost of healthful food and its lack of availability in African American neighborhoods.4, 5 In addition to access barriers, lack of nutritional knowledge is another cause of poor dietary behavior among disadvantaged populations.6, 7, 8
Effective communication of dietary guidelines has the potential to improve dietary behavior and reduce chronic disease among low-income African Americans. Communication is most effective when messages are framed in terms of the pre-existing conceptual framework of the target audience.9 The MyPyramid food guidance system is the tool developed by the United States Department of Agriculture to communicate the Dietary Guidelines to Americans.10 MyPyramid communicates the Dietary Guidelines by recommending a specific number of daily servings of 5 food groups—grains, vegetables, fruit, milk, and meat/beans—and discretionary calories. Although MyPyramid food groups reflect the nutritional properties of food,11 research suggests that lay food categories reflect social, personal, environmental, and cultural factors.12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 Differences between lay food groups and MyPyramid food groups could serve as a barrier to the understanding and implementation of dietary guidelines for some lay audiences.
The design of maximally effective nutrition messages for low-income African Americans requires a better understanding of their pre-existing beliefs and concepts about food and health. To decrease the cognitive burden of learning nutrition information, nutrition messages should use pre-existing food concepts whenever possible. Understanding food group categories of low-income African Americans is an essential first step in designing nutrition messages that are easily comprehensible and actionable to that population. To the authors' knowledge, the current paper is the first to describe lay food group categories used by low-income African American women.
Section snippets
Participants
Eligible participants were women who were caretakers of at least 1 child under the age of 18 and living in a low-income, predominantly African American neighborhood of Chicago. Participants were recruited by flyers posted in schools and daycare centers in the community and by word of mouth. In total, 28 subjects participated in the current study. The project was reviewed and approved by the Northwestern University Institutional Review Board with an expedited review, and oral consent was
Participant Agreement
The CCM showed high consensus among participants on the food group sorting task. Factor 1, which represents agreement across participants (ie, the cultural model), explained 56% of the variance on the task. Factor 2 explained 4.7%. This first-to-second factor ratio of 11.9:1 satisfied the CCM criterion for consensus, which specifies that the ratio of the first to the second factors should be at least 3:1. The second criterion for consensus was that participants have a consensus score (factor 1
Discussion
This study described the food group categories used by low-income African American women. Consensus analysis showed that women in this study shared a common “cultural model” of food groups. There was substantial overlap between MyPyramid and lay food groups, as well as systematic differences. Differences suggest that lay and MyPyramid food group categories are organized according to distinct criteria.15 Although MyPyramid categories are based on the macronutrient content of food items, lay food
Implications for Research and Practice
The authors hypothesize that nutrition messages that promote healthful eating behavior will be understood, remembered, and used better when explicitly connected to the pre-existing conceptual framework of the target audience. Findings suggest that the pre-existing conceptual framework used by participants in the current study represents food items in terms of social dimensions rather than nutritional dimensions. This culturally and psychologically salient conceptual framework is likely to be
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by funding from the Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children (CLOCC). The authors would like to thank Cynthia Williams and The Sinai Community Institute for help in recruiting participants and use of space for interviews, Sylvia Koneman for help with data collection and analysis, and Kathryn Keim, Jennifer Ventrelle, Lynda Powell, and anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier drafts.
References (29)
- et al.
Do economic constraints encourage the selection of energy dense diets?
Appetite
(2003) - et al.
Supermarkets, other food stores, and obesity: the atherosclerosis risk in communities study
Am J Prev Med
(2006) - et al.
Do nutrition knowledge and beliefs modify the association of socio-economic factors and diet quality among US adults?
Prev Med
(2008) - et al.
Development of food group composites and nutrient profiles for the MyPyramid Food Guidance System
J Nutr Educ Behav
(2006) - et al.
Classifying foods in contexts: How adults categorize foods for different eating settings
Appetite
(2007) - et al.
Food for thought: Cross-classification and category organization in a complex real-world domain
Cogn Psychol
(1999) - et al.
An analysis of the four food groups using multidimensional scaling
J Nutr Educ
(1986) - et al.
A bird's eye view: biological categorization and reasoning within and across cultures
Cognition
(2002) - et al.
Categorization and reasoning among tree experts: do all roads lead to Rome?
Cogn Psychol
(1997) - et al.
Dietary sources of nutrients among US adults, 1994 to 1996
J Am Diet Assoc
(2004)
Basic objects in natural categories
Cognit Psychol
Family resemblances: studies in the internal structure of categories
Cog Psychol
Qualitative diet indexes: a descriptive or an assessment tool?
J Am Diet Assoc
Consumer research for development of educational messages for the MyPyramid Food Guidance System
J Nutr Educ Behav
Cited by (15)
How young adults in Australia classify foods as healthy and unhealthy
2022, AppetiteCitation Excerpt :Therefore, use of the NOVA classification in communication with young adults might be simpler and more effective than the nutrient-based approaches inherent in traditional dietary guidelines. Past studies conducted in other countries that have examined individuals' classifications of food have found them to be similar to official classifications such as those used in the ADG (Lynch & Holmes, 2011). Other studies have found that several variables relate to perceived food classifications including personal experiences (e.g. food preferences) and context based classification that relate to the situational aspects of eating episodes such as meal components, meal time, location, source, convenience and people with whom food is consumed (Blake, 2008; Blake et al., 2007).
Food Classifications by Brazilian Amazon Mothers: Interactions With Eating Practices
2021, Journal of Nutrition Education and BehaviorCitation Excerpt :However, differently from Blake et al,8 who described that food-based taxonomic categories (ie, structured around foods’ intrinsic properties) were most frequent among their participants when no specific situation was defined, in this study, participants based their classifications on context (ie, a time or situation in which the food is eaten) and (expectations of) personal experiences (eg, healthiness). The importance of context and healthiness to the participants’ classifications reflects eating practices embedded in their social roles, as context-based classifications of foods are particularly helpful in generating plans for deciding about what foods to prepare/eat7 and mothers are widely reported to be the main responsible for planning and preparing family meals and to worry about the family's healthy eating29 Other studies with mothers have also observed food healthiness and type of meal to be important factors in classifying and choosing foods.21,30 The present findings corroborate studies suggesting that incorporating context-based classifications and personal experiences might help to guide nutrition interventions more compatible with real life.13,21
Comparing the ways a sample of Brazilian adults classify food with the NOVA food classification: An exploratory insight
2019, AppetiteCitation Excerpt :Usually a sample size of between 10 and 30 individuals is recommended in qualitative research carried out with semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions given the large volume of data obtained through this data collection method (Bauer & Gaskell, 2002). In addition, the number of participants in this study is similar to those of Worsley (1980), Lynch and Holmes (2011), and Quintiliani et al. (2008). Given that we used a cluster analysis, which is a descriptive and non-inferential analysis (Pereira, 2004) and that our sample was small and not representative of the Brazilian population, we cannot draw inferences of the study sample to the entire population of Brazil.
New approaches to qualitative interviewing: Development of a card sort technique to understand subjective patterns of symptoms and responses
2016, International Journal of Nursing StudiesDesign of the Lifestyle Improvement through Food and Exercise (LIFE) study: A randomized controlled trial of self-management of type 2 diabetes among African American patients from safety net health centers
2014, Contemporary Clinical TrialsCitation Excerpt :The nutrition education component was grounded in the information processing theory of food choice which assumes that changes in dietary behavior require changes to the content and processing of the mental representations underlying dietary behavior [44–46]. Design of the curriculum was guided by a series of cognitive anthropology studies which elucidated the conceptual landscape of food and health among low-income African American mothers [47–49]. Findings from those studies suggested that the target population had very limited knowledge of the food sources of macronutrients and the health impact associated with specific foods.
Concepts of Healthful Food among Low-Income African American Women
2012, Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior
- †
Dr. Lynch was affiliated with the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University at the time this study was completed.