VCU news

By Lorraine Cichowski and Diane Baer Wilson

RICHMOND, Va. – A Virginia Commonwealth University researcher’s innovative focus group study, designed to explore mother-daughter communication about food in a group of low-income African-American women, indicates that early poverty and a lack of emphasis on healthy foods may affect eating habits later in life.

Diane Baer Wilson, EdD, MS, RD, associate professor of internal medicine and a researcher at VCU’s Massey Cancer Center, conducted focus groups of African-American women in churches in rural South Carolina to explore how the women learned about nutrition and body size norms from their mothers. Understanding how women learn about food and diet is of interest to researchers because eating habits are so culturally based.  Traditionally, African-American women suffer poorer health outcomes than white women, and higher levels of obesity may be a contributing factor.

The study, published in the April quarterly issue of the Journal of Cultural Diversity, found that the women grew up being grateful for the food served at home by their mothers, without emphasis on certain foods being healthier than others. Vegetables were recalled as the primary food source by many of the women because families had home gardens and were quite self-sufficient in providing foods for the family.  The women remembered learning a lot about foods by watching their mothers in the kitchen. 

The study, however, also found differences in eating habits between the younger and older women interviewed. As compared with the older women, younger women indicated that their current eating patterns are more different from those they grew up learning, including more consumption of fast food and fewer home-cooked meals because of busy work and home schedules. Younger women also were more interested in losing weight because they had seen the negative health consequences of being overweight in family members.  Several had lost loved ones to diabetes.  

“Across cultures, mothers are the primary source of information on eating and diet and are significant role models for their children’s eating habits, particularly their daughters,” Wilson said. “Understanding how this information is transferred from mother to daughter can help in effectively tailoring health and nutrition education to target groups, such as African-American women.”

Wilson interviewed four groups of African-American women, aged 25-65, who were recruited in low-income communities in South Carolina through contacts with African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church congregations. The questions to the focus groups involved information that participants remembered their mothers sharing about healthy eating, body weight and body size satisfaction.  A total of 21 women participated.

The analysis of the interviews concluded:

·         The women were taught to eat all of what was served at meals because food was scarce at times.

·         There was not an emphasis on eating “healthy,” yet many said that vegetables were often central to the meals.

·         Mothers were the role models for teaching eating habits, and first-born daughters often had “cooking duties,” taught by their mothers.

·         Older African-American women said that they did not remember their mothers being concerned about being overweight or underweight. However, younger women cited a contradiction in that. When they wanted to lose weight, their mothers often worried that they might be ill, when in fact they wanted to improve their health. 

“Clearly, eating patterns established in childhood have long-lasting effects and may be hard to modify even when information about healthy eating and access to healthy food is provided,” said Wilson.  “Clinicians working with low-income African-American women should address overeating from a perspective of early-food scarcity, reverence for the role of mother in obtaining and preparing food and a respect for the cultural difference in body size norms.” 

She said future interventions should use the powerful communication channels between mothers and daughters as vehicles for delivering positive health messages in the home.