Assessing the home, parental, intrapersonal, and demographic factors influencing fruit and vegetables intake among Hispanic children in elementary schools

The purpose of the study was to investigate relationships between home, parental, intrapersonal, and demographic factors and fruit and vegetables intake among Hispanic children in elementary schools. The study also included development of the Home Nutrition Questionnaire (HNQ) to measure home, parental, and intrapersonal influences on the children. Paper-and-pencil, self-report questionnaires were administered among parents of elementary aged children from a low-income community in Texas. The sample contained 184 Hispanic parents. Exploratory factor analysis revealed 7 subscales/indices with adequate to good internal consistencies (0.72-0.91). These included: child preferences, parent preferences, parental fruit and vegetables behavior, parental practices that promote healthy eating, access to healthy foods, access to unhealthy foods, and cost. As indication of construct validity, children's fruit and vegetables intake was significantly correlated with all indices of HNQ, and was found to be significantly correlated with availability and accessibility of fruit and vegetables at home. In addition, children's fruit and vegetables intake was correlated with selected demographic variables such as child's age, gender, acculturation, and food insecurity. Mean fruit and vegetables intake was found to be significantly higher in children from less acculturated families than children from more acculturated families. Also, mean vegetable juice intake and mean fruit intake was found to be significantly higher among children from food secure families than children from food insecure families. From the hierarchical multiple regression analysis, acculturation and food insecurity were found to have significant independent influences on children's fruit and vegetables intake after controlling for child's age, child's gender, explaining variances of 11.9% and 18.6%, respectively. Of the home, parental, and intrapersonal factors, child preference, parental fruit and vegetable behavior, and access to healthy foods were found to have significant independent influences on children's fruit and vegetables intake, when controlling for child's age and gender, together explaining a variance of 36.2% in children's fruit and vegetables intake. Availability and accessibility of fruit and vegetables was also found to have the strongest independent influence on children's fruit and vegetables intake, explaining 46.8% of the variance along with the other home, parental, and intrapersonal factors in the model. The results highlight the influence of family environment of fruit and vegetables intake Hispanic children and suggest a need for more research on the home environment and parental influence on Hispanic children's fruit and vegetables intake. The research should preferably be longitudinal, to understand the causal pathways.