Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 May;20(7):1267-1278.
doi: 10.1017/S1368980016003311. Epub 2016 Dec 22.

Healthy eating patterns associated with acculturation, sex and BMI among Mexican Americans

Belinda Reininger  1 , MinJae Lee  2 , Rose Jennings  3 , Alexandra Evans  3 , Michelle Vidoni  1
Affiliations

Healthy eating patterns associated with acculturation, sex and BMI among Mexican Americans

Belinda Reininger et al. Public Health Nutr. 2017 May.

Abstract

Objective: Examine relationships of healthy and unhealthy dietary patterns with BMI, sex, age and acculturation among Mexican Americans.

Design: Cross-sectional. Participants completed culturally tailored Healthy and Unhealthy Eating Indices. Multivariable mixed-effect Poisson regression models compared food pattern index scores and dietary intake of specific foods by BMI, sex, age and acculturation defined by language preference and generational status.

Setting: Participants recruited from the Cameron County Hispanic Cohort study, Texas-Mexico border region, between 2008 and 2011.

Subjects: Mexican-American males and females aged 18-97 years (n 1250).

Results: Participants were primarily female (55·3 %), overweight or obese (85·7 %), preferred Spanish language (68·0 %) and first-generation status (60·3 %). Among first-generation participants, bilingual participants were less likely to have a healthy eating pattern than preferred Spanish-speaking participants (rate ratio (RR)=0·79, P=0·0218). This association was also found in males (RR=0·81, P=0·0098). Preferred English-speaking females were less likely to consume healthy foods than preferred Spanish-speaking females (RR=0·84, P=0·0293). Among second-generation participants, preferred English-speaking participants were more likely to report a higher unhealthy eating pattern than preferred Spanish-speaking participants (RR=1·23, P=0·0114). Higher unhealthy eating patterns were also found in females who preferred English v. females who preferred Spanish (RR=1·23, P=0·0107) or were bilingual (RR=1·26, P=0·0159). Younger, male participants were more likely to have a higher unhealthy eating pattern. BMI and diabetes status were not significantly associated with healthy or unhealthy eating patterns.

Conclusions: Acculturation, age, sex and education are associated with healthy and unhealthy dietary patterns. Nutrition interventions for Mexican Americans should tailor approaches by these characteristics.

Keywords: Acculturation; Community nutrition; Healthy eating patterns; Mexican Americans; US–Mexico border.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Hu FB (2002) Dietary pattern analysis: a new direction in nutritional epidemiology. Curr Opin Lipidol 13, 3–9. - PubMed
    1. Reedy J, Krebs-Smith SM, Miller PE et al. (2014) Higher diet quality is associated with decreased risk of all-cause, cardiovascular disease, and cancer mortality among older adults. J Nutr 144, 881–889. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Harmon BE, Boushey CJ, Shvetsov YB et al. (2015) Associations of key diet-quality indexes with mortality in the Multiethnic Cohort: the Dietary Patterns Methods Project. Am J Clin Nutr 101, 587–597. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Liese AD, Krebs-Smith SM, Subar AF et al. (2015) The Dietary Patterns Methods Project: synthesis of findings across cohorts and relevance to dietary guidance. J Nutr 145, 393–402. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kerver JM, Yang EJ, Bianchi L et al. (2003) Dietary patterns associated with risk factors for cardiovascular disease in healthy US adults. Am J Clin Nutr 78, 1103–1110. - PubMed

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources