UC San Diego

Background: Many adult Latinos are not meeting guidelines for healthy eating. Theory posits the important role of family and family members on individual’s health behaviors (e.g., diet). However, few studies examine how children impact their parents’ diet. Furthermore, empirical evidence shows that acculturation is an important predictor of diet among Latino adults. The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the role of children, families, and acculturation on mothers’ dietary intake and related behaviors.

Methods: Chapters 1 and 2 used secondary data from mother-child dyads enrolled in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) and Chapter 3 used primary data collected from mother-child dyads. Chapter 1 used baseline survey data from 314 Latino mother-child dyads to test how children’s acculturation and the mother-child acculturation gap was associated with mothers’ dietary intake and related behaviors. Building on the results from Chapter 1, in Chapter 2, longitudinal data from 162 dyads enrolled in delayed treatment group of the RCT were used to test the temporal relations of the family environment on traditional mothers’ dietary intake and behaviors, and whether these relations differed between mothers of assimilated versus bicultural children. Finally, Chapter 3 used qualitative interview data from mothers and their bicultural (n=11) or assimilated (n=10) children and quantitative data from mothers to explore how children influenced their mothers’ dietary intake and behaviors.

Results: Chapter 1 provided evidence that accounting for mothers’ acculturation, having an assimilated versus a bicultural child was negatively associated with mothers’ vegetable intake and positively associated with mothers’ sugary beverage intake, percent of calories from fat, and frequency of away-from-home eating. The most at-risk dyads for lower quality diet among mothers were traditional mothers of assimilated children. Chapter 2 found that less positive family interactions around food at baseline predicted more frequent away-from-home eating four months later among mothers of assimilated children. Additionally, more family expressiveness at four months predicted more dollars spent on fruits and vegetables at ten months among mothers of bicultural children. In Chapter 3, participants described how mothers’ feeding styles shaped children’s food preferences and in return, children’s food preferences influenced mothers’ dietary intake and behaviors.

Discussion: This dissertation found evidence for the important role of children and families on mothers’ dietary intake and related behaviors. The findings presented here support the theoretical notion that individuals’ health behaviors are directly and indirectly influenced by family-level factors. Further, this dissertation extends previous research on the important role of mothers on their children’s dietary outcomes by building evidence for the reciprocating influence of children on their mothers’ dietary intake and behaviors.