Determinants of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption among Low-Income Children: Are There Differences by Race/Ethnicity, Age, and Sex?

Abstract

Background Understanding determinants of high consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB), a highly prevalent obesogenic behavior, will help build effective customized public health interventions. Objective To identify child and parent lifestyle and household demographic factors predictive of high SSB consumption frequency in children from low-income, ethnically diverse communities that may help inform public health interventions. Design Cross-sectional telephone household survey. Participants/Setting 717 boys and 686 girls 3–18 years old from the New Jersey Childhood Obesity Study living in five low-income cities (Camden, New Brunswick, Newark, Trenton, and Vineland). The adult most knowledgeable about household food shopping completed a questionnaire over the telephone inquiring about their and their child’s dietary and physical activity habits, and household-, parent-, and child-level demographics. Main outcome measures Child’s SSB consumption frequency. Statistical analysis performed Multivariate ordered logit models were designed to investigate a variety of variables hypothesized to affect the frequency of SSB consumption. Exploratory stratified analyses by race, gender, and age were also conducted. Results Eight percent of our study participants never consumed SSBs, 45% consumed SSBs at least once per day, and 23% consumed twice or more per day. SSB consumption was higher among children 12–18 vs. 3–5 years (p<0.0001), of non-Hispanic black vs. non-Hispanic white race/ethnicity (p=0.010), who were moderate fast food consumers vs. never consumers (p=0.003), and those whose parents were high vs. low SSB consumers (p<0.0001). Living in a non-English speaking household (p=0.030), having a parent with a college or higher education vs. less than high school (p=0.003), and having breakfast 6–7 days/week vs. never to ≤ twice/week were associated with lower SSB consumption (p=0.001). Conclusions We identified a number of household-, parental-, and child-level predictors of SSB consumption, which varied by race, gender and age, useful for building customized interventions targeting certain behaviors in ethnically diverse, low-income children.

Sugar Sweetened Beverage Consumption Among Adults With Children in the Home

“…Han and Powell reported similar, but less robust results in their study on the association between lower levels of education and consumption of total SSBs ( OR = 1.34, 95% CI = 1.23, 1.47) or sodas only ( OR = 1.52, 95% CI = 1.39, 1.67) ( 21 ), as did Qobadi and Payton, in their study of SSB consumption in Mississippi ( OR = 1.9, 95% CI = 1.4, 2.6) ( 23 ). Two additional studies revealed an association between choosing SSBs for children and lower levels of education ( 30 , 31 ). Most striking in our study was the association between education and consumption of three or more SSBs per day.…”

“…Perceived less healthy diet and drinking <8 cups of water per day were also consistently associated with SSB in our study. Tasevska and associates also reported an association between consumption of SSB and eating a healthy diet (measured by eating breakfast 6 or 7 days per week) ( 30 ). Although Qobadi and Payton reported an association between consumption of SSBs and eating in fast-food restaurants, our study did not uncover a similar association ( 23 ).…”

“…Our study is limited in its focus on SSB consumption and further limited to adults with children in the household. Consumption of SSB among the children in the household was not measured in our survey ( 30 ). Second, cross-sectional studies have prediction limitations.…”

Children’s Consumption Patterns and Their Parent’s Perception of a Healthy Diet

“…Because the current study includes younger children, for whom self-reports are not a viable instrument, parent reports of consumption were used for children of all ages (3-18 years old). This approach was used to ensure consistency of responses across age groups and households and is in line with previous research [20,21].…”

Should Australia tax sugar‐sweetened beverages?

“…The soft drink industry argues that sugar taxes disproportionately and unfairly affect those from lower socio‐economic households. These groups spend more of their income on high sugar products than other households . Evidence from Berkeley California suggests that substantial sugar taxes do not necessarily make poorer communities worse off.…”