Location: Small Grain and Food Crops Quality Research
Project Number: 3060-21650-002-023-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Aug 1, 2021
End Date: Dec 31, 2025
Objective:
Objective 1: to characterize maternal and child pulse consumption, as well as examine their associations with diet quality and nutrition outcomes. Objective 2: to examine the influence of maternal pulse consumption on child pulse consumption and diet quality. Objective 3: to examine the associations of maternal pulse consumption during pregnancy with maternal cardio-metabolic health outcomes during pregnancy and up to 17 y postpartum. Objective 4: to examine the associations of maternal pulse consumption during pregnancy and postpartum with child growth and cardio-metabolic health at birth, in infancy, toddlers, early childhood, middle childhood, early adolescence, and mid-adolescence. Objective 5: to examine the associations of child pulse consumption (total and individual classes [dried beans, dried peas, lentils, chickpeas]) during infancy, in toddlers, and early childhood with child growth and cardio-metabolic health up to mid-adolescence.
Approach:
We propose a 5-year study to examine the extent to which maternal and child consumption of pulse foods influence pregnancy/birth outcomes, cardio-metabolic health, physical growth, and obesity up to perimenopause (mother) or adolescence (child). Guided by a life course framework, we will use secondary data from three U.S. longitudinal birth cohorts that tracked mother-child dyads from pregnancy to adolescence: (1) Project Viva (1999-present, N=2,128 newborns); (2) Infant Feeding Practices Study II (IFPS II, 2005-2012, N=3,033 newborns), and (3) WIC Infant and Toddler Feeding Practices Study-2 (WIC ITFPS-2, 2013-present, N=3,777 children). For Objective 1, we will first conduct descriptive analyses to characterize maternal and child pulse consumption in the total sample as well as by socio-demographics. Both the frequency and amount of pulse consumption will be analyzed using frequencies (%) for categorical variables and means (SD) for continuous variables. For Objective 2, we will use scatter plots to visualize the correlation between maternal and child pulse consumption, and then calculate Spearman correlation (ordinal variables). To examine the influence of maternal pulse consumption during pregnancy on child overall diet quality, we will use ANOVA and multivariable linear regression models to estimate the mean differences in Youth Healthy Eating Index, adjusting for confounders. For Objective 3, we will use Chi-square to compare the risk of pregnancy binary outcomes (e.g., gestational diabetes) by different levels of maternal pulse consumption. For Objective 4, we will conduct longitudinal data analysis on child growth and cardio-metabolic outcomes measured repeatedly across age points. We will fit a mixed effect model (SAS PROC MIXED) for continuous outcomes (e.g., BMI z-score), while a generalized linear mixed effect model (SAS PROC GLIMMIX) will be used for binary outcomes (e.g., obesity). For Objective 5, we will also fit a mixed effect model or generalized linear mixed effect model to examine the associations of child pulse consumption (total and individual classes [dried beans, dried peas, lentils, chickpeas]) with child growth and cardio-metabolic health outcomes.
