Abstract
BackgroundDietary habits established in early childhood and maternal socioeconomic status (SES) are important, complex, interrelated factors that influence a child’s growth and development. The aim of this study was to define the major dietary patterns in a cohort of young US children, construct a maternal SES index, and evaluate their associations.MethodsThe diets of 190 children from a randomized, controlled trial of prenatal supplementation of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) were recorded at 6-mo intervals from 2-4.5 years by 24-h dietary recall. Hierarchical cluster analysis of age-adjusted, average daily intake of 24 food and beverage groups was used to categorize diet. Unrotated factor analysis generated an SES score from maternal race, ethnicity, age, education, and neighborhood income.ResultsWe identified two major dietary patterns: “Prudent” and “Western.” The 85 (45%) children with a Prudent diet consumed more whole grains, fruit, yogurt and low-fat milk, green and non-starchy vegetables, and nuts and seeds. Conversely, those with a Western diet had greater intake of red meat, discretionary fat and condiments, sweet beverages, refined grains, French fries and potato chips, eggs, starchy vegetables, processed meats, chicken and seafood, and whole-fat milk. Compared to a Western diet, a Prudent diet was associated with one standard deviation higher maternal SES (95% CI: 0.80 to 1.30).ConclusionsWe found two major dietary patterns of young US children and defined a single, continuous axis of maternal SES that differed strongly between groups. This is an important first step to investigate how child diet, SES, and prenatal DHA supplementation interact to influence health outcomes.Trial registration NCT00266825. Prospectively registered on December 15, 2005Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12887-016-0729-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Dietary habits established in early childhood and maternal socioeconomic status (SES) are important, complex, interrelated factors that influence a child’s growth and development
Maternal SES was positively associated with maternal height, gestational weight gain, birthweight, duration of breastfeeding, maternal red blood cell (RBC) docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) at enrollment and delivery, change in DHA, and adherence and negatively associated with maternal weight, maternal BMI, and duration of formula feeding
We found evidence that a child’s diet was related to his or her mother’s dietary behavior, because higher maternal DHA at baseline was associated with the offspring consuming a Prudent diet
Summary
Dietary habits established in early childhood and maternal socioeconomic status (SES) are important, complex, interrelated factors that influence a child’s growth and development. Socioeconomic status (SES) confounds efforts to isolate how childhood dietary habits relate to health outcomes. SES is a multidimensional construct that conveys relative wealth, power, and prestige, and it is influenced by race, ethnicity, parental education, occupation, and income. It is a strong determinant of health [7] and has been repeatedly linked to diet quality [8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. The overall effect of SES cannot be accurately estimated when the highly collinear variables that determine SES are all added as covariates in a statistical model
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