Hispanic immigrant women’s perspective on healthy foods and the New York City retail food environment: A mixed-method study

Abstract

Much has been written about the role of dietary acculturation in the epidemic of obesity among Hispanic immigrants in the United States. Yet little is known about the role of beliefs and preferences in immigrants’ dietary practices and their relationship to the retail food environment in which the practices occur. We conducted a mixed-methods convergence study of these issues. Twenty eight foreign-born Hispanic adult women, recruited from families enrolled in a childhood asthma study and mainly living in New York City took part in 60–90 minute, semi-structured interviews regarding their dietary beliefs, preferences, and practices. The findings were then used to formulate hypotheses for analyses of food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) data collected from the 345 New York Hispanic women enrolled in the asthma study. Generalized estimating equations were used to determine whether characteristics of the retail food environment within 0.5 Km of the home predicted diet, adjusting for individual and neighborhood socio-demographic characteristics. In the interviews, healthy food was rarely discussed in terms of nutritional content. Instead, considerations of freshness, as indicated by time since harvest or slaughter and thus local sourcing; purity, as indicated by the absence of preservatives and processing; and naturalness, as indicated by chemical free farming practices, were the primary axes around which healthy food was defined. Quantitative results were consistent with the qualitative findings: 1) the presence of a farmers’ market within the home neighborhood was associated with consumption of more total servings per day of fruit, vegetables, and juice, and 2) the presence of a farmers’ market and/or a livestock market was associated with consumption of more servings per day of meat. Proximity to supermarkets or medium-sized grocery stores was not associated with consumption. The results suggest that the availability of fresh produce and meat from local farms may influence diet among Hispanic women in urban neighborhoods.

Exploring experiences of the food environment among immigrants living in the Region of Waterloo, Ontario

“…Furthermore, this study showed that the geographic access or physical factors related to the food environment directly influence the kind of food that immigrants can access, which echoes past research. 19,23 Such findings align with previous studies suggesting that areas in the Region of Waterloo are indeed food swamps on the basis of the high access to poor-quality food in RFOs.…”

“…18 Recent work in Canada and elsewhere attempts to understand how individuals navigate their food environment. 17,[19][20][21][22][23] Beyond examining environmental factors related to geographic and economic access, there is an absence of research investigating additional factors, such as those within the socio-cultural and political realm, which are also related to diet and obesity.…”

Outcomes of a randomized controlled trial of nutrition education to promote farmers’ market fruit and vegetable purchases and consumption among women enrolled in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)

“…Farmers' market use is found to be higher among foreign-as compared to US-born Hispanic mothers [37]. In research with foreign-born Hispanic women, cultural preferences for fresh FV have been identified [38][39][40]. In one study, participants reported using FMNP vouchers, local produce from friends and neighbors, and produce grown by families themselves to acquire fresh FV they desired [38].…”

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“…Farmers' markets are also associated with more healthful food consumption. For example, neighborhoods with farmers' markets had higher fruit and vegetable consumption rates among people of color 49 .…”