Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes both ASU Theses and Dissertations, submitted by graduate students, and the Barrett, Honors College theses submitted by undergraduate students.
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the US comparing parental perception of their child’s diet with quantitatively assessed diet quality. We examined the association between parent perception of their child’s overall diet and the child’s diet quality, as measured by frequency of consumption of key food categories.
Methods: Secondary analysis was conducted using data from two independent cross- sectional panels of surveys with parents of a 3-18 year old child. Data collection took place in 2009-2010 and 2014, the random sample was drawn from low-income cities. Well-established survey questions assessed parental perception of their child’s diet and frequency of consumption of fruits, vegetables, sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB), fast food and unhealthy snacks. Diet quality scores were calculated for each child, with higher scores reflective of healthier diets (max score= 40). Ordered logistic regressions examined associations between parental perception and consumption of food categories. Multinomial logistic regressions examined associations between levels of concordance in parent perception and diet scores by demographic sub-groups.
Results: Almost half of children were non-Hispanic black (46%) and 40% were Hispanic. Overall 52% of parents strongly agreed, 33% somewhat agreed, 10% somewhat disagreed, and 4% strongly disagreed that their child eats a healthy diet. The mean diet quality score for the sample was 20.58 ± 6.7. Children from our sample with the unhealthiest diet had a mean frequency of fruit intake = 0.8 times/day and SSBs = 2.2 times/day. Children with the healthiest diet had a mean consumption of fruit=1.7/day and
SSBs= 0.4/day. Parental perception of their child’s diet was significantly higher when their child consumed more fruit (p<0.001) and vegetables (p<0.001) and lower when their child consumed more fast food (p<0.001), SSBs (p=0.01) and unhealthy snacks (p=0.02). Over half of parents overestimated the healthfulness of their child’s diet (61%). Parent, child and household demographics did not moderate this association.
Conclusions: Although parental perceptions that their child eats healthy are associated when their child eats more healthy foods and less unhealthy foods, parents’ perceptions still do not align with their child’s diet.
Significant health inequalities exist between different castes and ethnic communities in India, and identifying the roots of these inequalities is of interest to public health research and policy. Research on caste-based health inequalities in India has historically focused on general, government-defined categories, such as “Scheduled Castes,” “Scheduled Tribes,” and “Other Backward Classes.” This method obscures the diversity of experiences, indicators of well-being, and health outcomes between castes, tribes, and other communities in the “scheduled” category. This study analyzes data on 699,686 women from 4,260 castes, tribes and communities in the 2015-2016 Demographic and Health Survey of India to: (1) examine the diversity within and overlap between general, government-defined community categories in both wealth, infant mortality, and education, and (2) analyze how infant mortality is related to community category membership and socioeconomic status (measured using highest level of education and household wealth). While there are significant differences between general, government-defined community categories (e.g., scheduled caste, backward class) in both wealth and infant mortality, the vast majority of variation between communities occurs within these categories. Moreover, when other socioeconomic factors like wealth and education are taken into account, the difference between general, government-defined categories reduces or disappears. These findings suggest that focusing on measures of education and wealth at the household level, rather than general caste categories, may more accurately target those individuals and households most at risk for poor health outcomes. Further research is needed to explain the mechanisms by which discrimination affects health in these populations, and to identify sources of resilience, which may inform more effective policies.