Factors associated with women's and children's body mass indices by income status

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:To describe associations between eating behaviors, dietary intake, physical activity, attitudes toward diet and health, sociodemographic variables and body mass index (BMI) among women and children, and differences by household income. DESIGN: Data from the 1994-1996 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals (CSFII) and the Diet and Health Knowledge Survey (DHKS) were examined using multivariate regression to estimate the associations between BMI and behavioral and environmental variables among women and children. SUBJECTS: CSFII 1994-1996 is representative of the US population. DHKS surveyed CSFII respondents 20 y of age and over. Our samples consisted of 2419 adult women and 1651 school-age children. MEASUREMENTS: CSFII respondents reported 24 h recalls of all food intakes on 2 nonconsecutive days and their personal and household characteristics, including self-reported height and weight. DHKS collected data on knowledge and attitudes toward dietary guidance and health from CSFII adult respondents. RESULTS: Significant correlations between women's BMI and age, race, dietary patterns, TV watching, and smoking was observed among women from both low-and high-income households. Beverage consumption, eating out, the importance of maintaining healthy weight, and exercise were correlated with BMI only among women from high-income households. Among children, age, race, income, and mother's BMI were significantly correlated with child BMI. CONCLUSIONS: Among women, the associations between some behavioral and environmental factors and BMI differ by household income. Intervention programs need to target specific eating and physical activity behaviors to promote a healthy body weight.

Diet Quality Varies by Race/Ethnicity of Head Start Mothers

“…Analysis of the 1988-1994 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data demonstrated that lowincome adults had lower quality diets than those with high incomes as reflected in lower intakes of fruit, vegetables, and dairy foods; higher intakes of fat and sodium (7); and lower intakes of vitamin C, calcium, and dietary fiber (15). In addition, low-income women were more likely than higher-income women to exceed the fat recommendation (7).…”

“…Increasingly the dietary intakes of economically disadvantaged groups are seen as contributing to poor health profiles (6)(7)(8)(9)(10) and costs of healthful diets as being out of reach for those with limited financial resources (11). Cristofar and Basiotis (12) used 1-day intakes from a national survey to demonstrate that food insecure mothers had lower intakes of fruit, vegetables, and low-fat dairy foods compared to food secure women (10,13,14).…”

Healthy Eating Index and abdominal obesity

“…Diet is an important lifestyle factor that has been related to body composition and may play a critical role in the prevention of obesity (7)(8)(9) . In addition to BMI, waist circumference (WC) is used to evaluate health risk.…”

“…In addition to BMI, waist circumference (WC) is used to evaluate health risk. A WC measurement of $88 cm for women or $102 cm for men is defined as abdominal obesity (1,9) . Abdominal obesity has been associated with an increased risk of multiple diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and some types of cancer (10,11) .…”

Children’s Reactions towards the Use of ‘Child-Friendly’ Learning Environments in an Obesity Prevention Health Education Program

“…These eating habits have been found to have a positive relationship with the increase in adipose tissue content in the body which cause obesity problems among children and teenagers (Boutelle et al, 2002;Nicklas et al, 2003;Lin, Huang, & French, 2004;Welsh et al, 2005;American Dietetic Association, 2006). It was also found that many children do not perform enough healthy physical activities such as exercise, house chores, and playing sports in an organized manner; statistics show that 76% children between the ages of 3-6 years lack physical activity (Hillary et al, 2005;Taveras et al, 2006;Lumeng et al, 2006).…”