Motivators and Barriers to Healthy Eating During Pregnancy in Low-Income Women

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This article, from the most recent issue of JAND (read it here), looked at African-American women utilizing Medicaid and that were eligible for WIC.  The researchers were able to identify 10 themes that were motivators or barriers to healthy eating during pregnancy.  They also found that the definition of “healthy” was not clear in this population.  Educating this population on the facts behind some misconceptions with pregnancy feeding and energy needs, as well as on healthy and affordable foods may improve the diet quality in this group of people.

 
When doing any sort of work out in the community, it’s essential that you know what barrier(s) that the population you are trying to serve has so that you have ways to work around those barriers.  This article caught my eye since it was a qualitative study, which is not done that often with nutrition.  This article is especially important though as it highlights a high risk group of people, i.e. pregnant, low-income, and overweight/obese women, which are present in all cities.  The study also stated that only half of the participants were utilizing WIC services.  The common themes that the researchers found included “healthy mom means a healthy baby,” “food supply fluctuates each month,” “misunderstanding about what defines ‘healthy’,” and “family and friends pressure mothers to eat.”   If all of the mothers were to utilize WIC services, for example, the food supply would be more consistent and these participants would have access to education smoothing out some of these misconceptions on health, diet, and pregnancy.  Overall, the article showed a disconnect between perception and action in terms of nutrition and access to services, things that as future RD’s we can work towards fixing. 

Source:

Reyes, R. R., Klotz, A. A., & Herring, S. J.  (2013).  A qualitative study of motivators and barriers to healthy eating in pregnancy for low-income, overweight, African-American mothers.  Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 113 (9): 1175-1181.  Doi: 10.1016/j.jand.2013.05.014


-- C. Pfaff

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