Factors Associated with Home Meal Preparation and Fast-Food Sources Use among Low-Income Urban African American Adults

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to assess the factors associated with home meal preparation (HMP) and fast-food sources use (FFS) frequencies of low-income African-American adults and their healthy food beliefs and attitudes, food-related psychosocial factors, food acquisition patterns, food sources use, and BMI. We used cross-sectional data from 295 adults living in Baltimore, USA. HMP was inversely associated with FFS, which had lower odds of HMP ≥1 time/day and higher BMI scores. HMP was positively associated with positive beliefs and self-efficacy toward healthy foods, getting food from healthier food sources, and lower FFS. Higher odds of HMP ≥1 time/day were associated with getting food from farmers’ market and supermarkets or grocery stores. FFS had an inverse association with positive beliefs and self-efficacy toward healthy foods, and a positive association with less healthy food acquisition scores. Higher odds of FFS ≥1 time/week were associated with getting food from corner stores, sit-down restaurants, and convenience stores.

KEYWORDS:

• African-Americans
• cooking, food deserts

Notes

¹ We dichotomized the dependent variables using the mean frequency of home meal preparation and fast-food sources use, rounding to 30 to improve interpretation of the results (e.g., reported frequency of 30 times of food prepared in the past 30 days was interpreted as preparing food at least once a day).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo [2014/23162-9]. Research reported in this publication was supported by the Global Obesity Prevention Center (GOPC) at Johns Hopkins, and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health (OD) under award number U54HD070725.