Perspectives in practiceAn examination of at-home food preparation activity among low-income, food-insecure women☆
Section snippets
Description of data
Data were drawn from a 1996–1997 study of food insecurity and nutritional vulnerability among women using charitable food assistance programs in Toronto 31, 32. Participants were recruited on a “first come, first served” basis from a stratified, random sample of 21 food assistance programs. Eligible women were 19 to 49 years of age, not pregnant, had at least one child younger than 15 years in their household, had used a food assistance program at least one other time in the past 12 months, and
Application of method to estimate food preparation
The predictive equation was first applied to estimate preparation at each eating occasion. Eating occasions that did not include any home-prepared foods were assigned a score of zero. For each participant, the preparation scores assigned to all reported eating occasions were summed over each 24-hour recall period, and two summary measures were constructed: food preparation complexity and the frequency of food preparation from scratch. Food preparation complexity was represented by the mean of
Statistical analyses of relationships between food preparation and other variables
Least-squares regression was used to examine the relationships between food preparation complexity or frequency of preparation from scratch and women’s 3-day mean intakes of energy, macronutrients, vitamin C, vitamin A, folate, iron, magnesium, zinc, and calcium, as well as 3-day mean numbers of servings from each food group. The micronutrients examined were those for which there was some evidence of inadequacy in the sample (31).
The relationship between at-home food preparation and dietary
Food preparation activity
During the 3 days of data collection, 97% of participants consumed foods prepared from scratch at least once. More than half (57%) consumed foods prepared from scratch on all 3 days; 26% did so on 2 days, and 14% did so on 1 day. Participants’ 3-day mean complexity scores ranged from 0 to 100 (mean score 32.8±15.9). The observed distributions of 3-day mean complexity scores and frequency of preparation from scratch are summarized in Table 1. There was a strong, positive correlation between the
Discussion
The high levels of at-home food preparation reflected in women’s dietary intakes are consistent with other research documenting the skill and resourcefulness of low-income families 25, 26, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51. These findings challenge the stereotypical notions that families in poverty lack the skill or motivation to cook foods from scratch, but also raise questions about the extent to which food skills can protect very-low-income families from food insecurity. We did not find a
Applications
■In planning intervention programs for low-income women with children, it is important for nutrition professionals to recognize the skills and resourcefulness that already exist in these households and the limited extent to which food skills can compensate for income inadequacies. Undoubtedly there are particular subgroups who could benefit from education interventions, but our research and that of others (52) suggest that food skills alone are unlikely to protect very poor families from hunger
C. McLaughlin was with the Department of Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
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Cited by (0)
C. McLaughlin was with the Department of Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
V. Tarasuk is with the Department of Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, On-tario, Canada
N. Kreiger are with the Department of Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. N. Kreiger is also with Cancer Care Ontario, Toronto.
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This research project was funded by a grant from the Danone Institute of Canada.