Journal of nutrition education最新文献

Books, curricula, audiovisuals, and other resources that nutrition professionals may use for reference, continuing education, or in a formal or informal education setting are designated “professional.” Books, handouts, diet plans, and other resources specified by authors as being written for general audiences are categorized as “consumer.” Inclusion of any material in this section does not imply endorsement by the Society for Nutrition Education. Evaluative comments contained in the reviews reflect the views of the authors. Prices quoted are those provided by the publishers at the time materials were submitted. They may no longer be current when the review is published.

Objective

The objective of this study was to investigate the meanings of “healthy” and “unhealthy” eating and the importance of healthy eating among adolescents.

Design

Twenty-five structured focus groups were conducted.

Subjects

These focus groups consisted of 203 adolescent girls and boys enrolled in three senior high schools and one junior high school.

Variables Measured

The variables measured were adolescents' self-report of perceptions of healthy and unhealthy eating and their descriptions of the importance of healthy eating to adolescents.

Analysis

Data analysis was done by general content coding and specific content coding.

Results

Adolescents have a significant amount of knowledge regarding healthy foods and believe that healthy eating involves moderation, balance, and variety. Despite this knowledge, they find it difficult to follow healthy eating recommendations and frequently consume foods that they perceive as unhealthy. Barriers to healthy eating include a lack of time, limited availability of healthy foods in schools, and a general lack of concern regarding following healthy eating recommendations.

Implications

These findings suggest that healthy eating messages based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans are reaching adolescents, but interventions are needed that assist adolescents with the translation of this knowledge into healthy behaviors. Interventions should help make healthy eating easy for youth to apply and explain the consequences of unhealthy eating in terms that they value, stressing meaningful short-term benefits.

Objective

The purpose of this research was to investigate, in a nonclinical sample of adults, thoughts on and experiences with weight stigmatization.

Design

Focus groups were used to collect information. Participants were recruited through a newspaper advertisement and flyers posted in public places in Minneapolis and St. Paul. During the focus groups, participants were led in a discussion about their thoughts on weight stigmatization and personal experiences of being treated differently or poorly because of their weight.

Subjects

Six gender-specific focus groups consisted of 31 adult volunteers (17 women and 14 men).

Variable Measured

Perceptions of weight-based stereotypes and weight stigmatization and personal reports of having been treated differently or poorly owing to weight were measured.

Results

Participants reported a variety of experiences of being treated differently or poorly because of their weight. These included teasing, harassment, slurs and insults, negative judgments and assumptions, and perceived discrimination. Participants reported that such experiences occurred at home, among friends and strangers, at work, and in health care settings. Women reported a greater number and a greater variety of negative experiences than men.

Implications

The results indicated that participants experienced weight-based stigmatization in many aspects of their lives. Awareness of these experiences may assist in the development of treatments for overweight individuals.

Objective

The purpose of this study was to develop a substantive theory expressing the meanings couples associated with eating fruits and vegetables.

Design

This inductive qualitative study was based on a grounded theory approach and employed the constant comparison method of data analysis. Data were collected using semistructured individual interviews and a life history approach.

Subjects

Ten adult couples, aged 20 to 60 years, with and without children, all of whom were born in North America, were recruited using modified snowball sampling.

Results

Two overarching themes emerged. The “should syndrome” describes a morality concerning fruit and vegetable consumption arising from a tension between the low status of these foods in participants' childhood homes and their contemporary idealized status. The creation of couple gastronomies expresses couples' efforts to construct their own food norms and practices within a context of changes in social norms and fruit and vegetable availability. The substantive theory, making choices that balance their lives, conveys the dynamic processes involved in participants' fruit and vegetable choices.

Implications

Future research will determine the transferability of the “should syndrome” and new couples' receptiveness to trying new fruits and vegetables. Understanding the changing contexts of food choice may help nutrition professionals better support healthful eating.

Objective

This qualitative research describes some of the social organization of the American nutrition profession set in place by an apparent competition between two kinds of knowledge—a science-based knowledge and another more experimental knowledge drawn from practice.

Design

The methodological approach is constructivist and uses the theoretical framework of sociologist Dorothy Smith.

Subjects and Settings

Multiple data sources include: interviews and bibliographic data from 23 purposefully selected subjects who taught or studied in a graduate-level Nutrition Program at Teacher College, Columbia University from 1937 to 1992; administrative reports of the Program; faculty writings; dissertations approved by the program; the author's twenty-five years of experience in the nutrition profession; and a series of diagrams drawn to interpret and describe the data. Subjects recounted their varied professional experience during the 55-year period as a part of a larger study.

Main Outcome Measures

The research traces changes in the relationship between nutrition science and practice as shaped by underlying sciences (food, agriculture, nutrition and health), related industries (food and health care), and culturally-bound gender ideals.

Data Analysis

Data analysis was based on recommended strategies for an inductive, interpretive, ethnographic case study.

Results

Subjects identified three forms of the construct of food—as nutrients, as marketable products, and as nurturance. This research suggests that the nurturing properties of food, the knowledge this generates, and the practitioners associated with nurturance are vulnerable and risk disappearance inside the profession, due to a history of resistance to this aspect of our discipline.

Implications

The author recommends collaborative research between nutritionists and historians, sociologists and others to bring forth a more critical history of this profession.

Objective

Extensiveness represents the amount of information gathered in qualitative research. This study examined sample extensiveness in qualitative nutrition education research.

Design

Retrospective analysis was performed on articles published in the Journal of Nutrition Education (JNE) from 1969 to 1999 (Volumes 1 to 31).

Subjects

Content analysis was used to code articles and the studies they reported as units of analysis.

Outcome Measures

Articles were coded to determine whether they included one or more studies using qualitative research and, if so, the types of qualitative studies performed, the sample extensiveness of each study, and mention of sample extensiveness limitations in the article.

Statistical Analyses

The statistics used were univariate (counts, percentages, means, medians, modes, ranges) and bivariate (chi-square, correlations).

Results

Of the published JNE articles, 71 (8%) used qualitative methods, and most (85%) qualitative articles were published in the 1990s. Some (19%) of these articles reported using multiple qualitative methods. The 30 studies using individual interviews interviewed an average of 45 people (range 15–155). The 38 studies using group interviews averaged 15 groups (range 1–180) and 141 people (range 9–900). Ten studies used observation/fieldwork, and eight used other types of qualitative research, mixed with patterns of sample extensiveness in those studies. Few articles made specific statements about limitations based on sample extensiveness.

Implications

Sample extensiveness in qualitative research in JNE varied considerably. Future qualitative research would benefit from more explicit attention to sample extensiveness.