Maternal cultural participation and child health status in a Middle Eastern context: evidence from an urban health study

Abstract

Background-The negative effect of poverty on child health has been well established. However, rapid urbanization in developing countries prompts new research questions relating to socio-cultural practices and other related variables in these settings.

Hábitos alimentares e comportamento de consumo infantil: influência da renda familiar e do hábito de assistir à televisão

“…Dados de um estudo global revelam que crianças comumente assistem a programas que não foram feitos especificamente para elas, e que, nos horários de maior audiência desse público, o número de propagandas de alimentos pouco saudáveis é ainda maior que durante o resto da programação 31 . A falta de controle dos pais sobre o tempo em que os filhos assistem à TV tem sido relacionada ao baixo nível educacional da mãe 34 e a hábitos alimentares pouco saudáveis 35 .…”

Maternal cultural capital: what is being measured and how important is it as a determinant of child health?

“…Cultural capital is an under‐researched and, as yet, inadequately validated variable. Maternal cultural capital, according to Khawaja and colleagues (2006), is defined by four indicators: exposure to entertainment TV programmes, exposure to cultural/political TV programmes, art production and art consumption. The authors state that ‘their measurement strategy of cultural participation is quite similar to that used in previous research investigating the impact of cultural participation on various health outcomes among Swedish adults’.…”

“…Even if we accept the validity of the measures used to assess cultural capital, it is questionable whether maternal cultural capital is an important independent determinant of child health. Khawaja and colleagues (2006) suggest some plausible pathways by which maternal cultural capital might promote child health. However, there is another possible explanation for their findings.…”

“…Cultural capital, like social capital, is likely to be highly structured by class, status in society and education, and its association with reported child health status is likely to be a reflection of these influences. The logistic regression model used by Khawaja and colleagues (2006) does not allow them to explore whether cultural capital is part of a pathway from education/class/social status to child health. The authors indicate that their cross‐sectional data do not allow them to use different analytical methods to explore these potential pathways.…”

“…Explanatory variables based on various types of capital, for example, social capital, that are postulated to reside in individuals and/or communities have been widely studied in relation to child and adult health in the past few decades. Khawaja and colleagues (2006) introduce a further ‘capital’ variable, maternal cultural capital, which they suggest makes significant contribution to explaining variance in maternal reports of the health status of their children under 5 years of age. Their paper raises the interesting possibility that, for mothers in poor communities, increased involvement in cultural activities, including watching TV, may protect their children’s health.…”