PILOT ABSTRACT:
Dietary Intake and Nutritional Education (DINE) for Latino Migrant Farmworkers
Jill Kilanowski
Self-management of child weight is a partnership between parent and child that is influenced by dietary intake and food selection, as well as physical activity level and requires the acquisition of new skills as well as new knowledge. In the immigrant population there is insufficient information about how the dietary intake of children is influenced by their family’s potential limited/uncertain access to nutritious, safe foods necessary for healthy living (food insecurity). This pilot study will involve Latino migrant farmworkers (MFW) who will serve as a prototype for this and other populations of immigrant parents. Measures of acculturation, self-efficacy, and household food insecurity will be evaluated for relationships to child dietary intake and Body Mass Index (BMI)-for-age percentiles. The aim of this pilot study is to examine the feasibility and effectiveness of the Dine Intake and Nutrition Education (DINE) intervention. The proposed pilot study of immigrant parents and their children’s dietary intake involves 3 phases. Phase 1 will contain 30 MFW parents and involve quantitative and qualitative data collection in acculturation, self-efficacy, food insecurity and dietary intake. This information will be used in Phase 2 to guide the creation of a culturally appropriate DINE intervention. Phase 3 will involve 2 groups of 30 MFW parent-child dyads, to examine the feasibility and effectiveness of the DINE intervention in relation to child dietary intake as established by the USDA. This study is innovative and the first of its kind as there are no published research studies that have examined the effects of intervention on child dietary intake and BMI in the children of MFWs in the Midwest. Phase 3 is a two group quasi-experimental longitudinal and repeated measure design with random assignment to a control group and intervention group. Preliminary work has established relationships in the agricultural migrant circle. Known migrant camps will be used as research sites, as well as an established source of networking to expand to new data collection sites. Cluster sampling will draw data collection sites from migrant farms within a geographically area. Instruments will include: self-efficacy and acculturation scales, and U.S. Household Food Security Scale. Outcomes will be a repeated time measure of dietary intake and BMI-for age percentiles. |
