MyPlate and urban low-income Asian Americans in the United States: a study to improve nutrition education.

Abstract

This study describes barriers to using the MyPlate visual as a resource for communicating dietary recommendations to Asian American participants of a federally funded nutrition education program. To identify potential barriers to using MyPlate, an interdisciplinary team collected quantitative (n = 349) and qualitative (n = 40) data via a cross-sectional survey and a series of focus group interviews with convenience samples of Cambodian, Filipino, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean adult participants of a nutrition education class in downtown Los Angeles. Findings showed that 13.2% of the participants ate meals only on a plate, 30.7% were accustomed to eating only refined grains like white rice, and 22.4% did not customarily make half their meals to consist of fruits and vegetables. Food customs, preference, and taste vary across these subgroups. The heterogeneity and complexity of dietary practices among Asian subgroups suggest a need to better tailor nutrition education resources for use in these populations.