Maternal well-being, food involvement and quality of diet: Profiles of single mother-adolescent dyads

Abstract

We sought to identify profiles of single-mother families according to the quality of family members' diets. A total of 170 single-mother-adolescent-children dyads participated in the study, the Adapted Healthy Eating Index (AHEI), Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), Satisfaction with Food-related Life (SWFL) scale and Food Involvement Scale (FIS) were used. Cluster analysis identified three family profiles with significant differences in the average scores of the AHEI family members: “unhealthy diet families” (48.8%), “families of mothers with unhealthy diets and children with healthier diets” (17.6%) and “healthier diet families” (33.5%). Profiles differed in average AHEI scores of mothers and children, frequency of consumption of different foods included in the AHEI, both family members' variety of diet scores, the mothers' mean scores from the SWLS and the mean scores from the “importance of food” factor of the FIS. These findings suggest the need to apply intervention strategies to improve the quality of the diet by family profile and by family member. Special emphasis should be placed on increasing the levels of food involvement and life satisfaction of the mothers.