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ARS Home » Plains Area » Houston, Texas » Children's Nutrition Research Center » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #342546
Title: The baseline characteristics of parents and African American girls in an online obesity prevention program: A feasibility study

Author
item CALLENDER, CHISHINGA - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC)
item LIU, YAN - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC)
item MOORE, CAROLYN - Texas Woman'S University
item Thompson, Deborah - Debbe

Submitted to: Preventive Medicine Reports
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/15/2017
Publication Date: 5/19/2017
Publication URL: https://handle.nal.usda.gov/10113/5700735
Citation: Callender, C., Liu, Y., Moore, C.E., Thompson, D.J. 2017. The baseline characteristics of parents and African American girls in an online obesity prevention program: A feasibility study. Preventive Medicine Reports. 7:110-115.

Interpretive Summary: African American girls are at risk of obesity. Research is needed to identify factors associated with their dietary habits that could serve as key intervention targets. Key relationships were observed between select parent demographic characters, child fruit and vegetable intake, and parent/child psychosocial variables. This research identified key factors that may enhance obesity prevention efforts in young African American girls.

Technical Abstract: The objective of this paper was to identify the relationships and associations between child and parent characteristics with child fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption in an online obesity prevention program for 8-10 year old African American girls. Girls and a parent (n=342 child-parent pairs) in the southwestern US completed baseline data collection from 2012 to 2014. Girls and a parent completed self-report questionnaires online. Girls also completed two unannounced 24 hour telephone-based dietary recalls. The relationships of parent demographic characteristics, child FV intake, and psychosocial variables (child and parent) were examined by analysis of variance. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to determine the relationships between psychosocial variables and child FV intake. Child FV intake was significantly greater in the highest household education (p=0.001) and income groups (p=0.004). FV home availability was higher with older parents (p=0.007) and two-parent households (p=0.033). Child FV intake was positively related to child FV preferences (p<0.001), FV home availability (p=0.022), and FV home accessibility (p=0.002) but was negatively related to family barriers to FV consumption (p=0.000). The study highlighted significant findings between child FV consumption and parent psychosocial variables and demographic characteristics that may offer insights for the design of effective obesity prevention interventions for 8-10 year old African American girls.