Yup’ik identity and socioeconomic status are associated with child consumption of traditional food and weight in rural Yup’ik communities

ABSTRACT

Objective: In remote, Alaska Native communities, traditional foods remain a significant source of essential nutrients and appear to protect against the development of chronic diseases. Relatively low intake of traditional foods among Alaska Native children is therefore of concern. The aim of this study was to identify household and parental predictors of child traditional food (TF) consumption and weight in remote Yup’ik communities of Alaska.

Design: Children (10–18 years old) and parents in two communities (populations <500) were invited to participate in this cross-sectional study. Intake of traditional foods among children and parents was estimated from two-24 h recalls using NDS-R. Weight and height were measured and BMI calculated. Sociodemographic factors, including income and education, were collected from parents. A partial least square path modeling analysis and bootstrapping were performed to identify predictors of child TF consumption and weight.

Results: Parental intake of traditional foods, Yup’ik identity and income were positively associated with child intake of traditional foods. Further, parental intake of traditional foods predicted lower child BMI. Parental education was negatively associated with child traditional food intake and positively associated with child BMI.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that interventions targeting parents may be an effective strategy to increase intake of traditional foods and improve diet quality among Alaska Native youth.

KEYWORDS:

• Yup’ik culture
• traditional food
• child
• diet
• socioeconomic factors
• dyads

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge our participants in the YK Delta and the CANHR field team including Kathryn Cessnun, Eliza Orr, Janne Maier, and Marjie Richards. We also thank Dr. Christine Tichit, INRA Unité ALISS-1303, for her valuable advice on the analyses.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (National Institute of Health) [grant number P20 RR16430, 5U54 GM104944 and 1P30GM103325] and by the University of Paris-Saclay under Grant ‘Bourse de mobilité sortante 2015’.