Developing and Testing Nutrition Messages for Asian Indian Mothers

Abstract

Introduction In the past ten years, the Asian population has grown significantly, at a rate of 43.3%. In 2010, 17.3 million people In the United States (US) were Asian (Asian alone or in combination with one or more races), representing 5.6% of the total US population. Among Asians, the Asian Indian (AI) population is one of the rapidly growing immigrant populations in the US. The AI population has increased by 68% from 2000 to 2010 and represents the 3rd largest Asian immigrant group, followed by Chinese American and Filipino American [1]. Objective: To develop and test nutrition messages for Asian Indian mothers addressing eight feeding behaviors likely to influence children’s dietary intake and weight. Citation: Momin SR, Olson BH (2014) Developing and Testing Nutrition Messages for Asian Indian Mothers. J Nutr Health Sci 1(3): 301. doi: 10.15744/2393-9060.1.301 Methods: Based on the previous research, nine nutrition education messages were adapted from those developed by the United States Department of Agriculture and 29 new messages were developed. Cognitive response testing was conducted with ten immigrant Asian Indian mothers of children ages 5-10 years to evaluate core and supporting messages. Comprehensibility, agreement with, and feasibility of acting on nutrition messages was assessed during the cognitive interviews. Content analysis of the data was conducted by generating common themes, organizing the themes in display matrix, and quantifying the responses. Results: The resulting 38 core and supporting messages for eight feeding behaviors were categorized into three groups: 1) Mealtime environment (family meals, TV viewing while eating, and parental modeling of health eating), 2) Availability and accessibility of healthy food at home, and 3) Controlling child feeding behaviors (restricting consumption of certain food, offering food rewards for finishing meal, and pressuring to eat). Mothers were receptive to 31 messages, with minor revisions made to five messages to improve clarity and increase acceptability. Two messages that received strong negative responses were deemed inappropriate for this population. Conclusion: Nutrition professionals working with Asian Indian families may use the final messages in education materials to help mothers practice feeding behaviors conducive to healthy eating and overweight prevention in their children. Future research is needed to test the efficacy of these nutrition messages, within a nutrition education curriculum or program, on behavior change in Asian Indian mothers. Studies have shown that the rates of overweight and obesity increase among immigrants upon migration to the US [2,3]. While obesity rates for AI children are low compared to other Asian ethnic groups [4], current research suggests that obesity rates among AI immigrants in the US are significantly higher compared to the native population living in India [3]. The risk of obesity for AI immigrants increases with length of stay in the US. Furthermore, obesity risk is higher for US born AI than immigrants [2]. With the rapid growth of this population, the proportion of overweight AI children will increase as more AI children are born and raised in the Westernized culture, resulting in a need to target obesity prevention efforts to this group.