Family food patterns and dietary change in an intervention study : the Family Heart Study

Graduation date: 1986Division of labor in household food preparation tasks is of\ud interest in dietary intervention projects. Randomly selected families\ud were recruited to participate in a 5-year family-based study. A small\ud group format that emphasized family involvement was used to promote\ud change from the American diet (40% fat, 500 mg cholesterol P/S = .05)\ud to the Alternative diet (20% fat, 100 mg cholesterol, P/S = 1.0). The\ud change of division of labor in the households was evaluated from\ud baseline to 60 months. A subsample of 109 male-female couples who\ud were not divorced, pregnant or ill, responded to a questionnaire\ud regarding who does the cooking, shopping and deciding what the family\ud will eat. Plasma lipids and dietary intake were assessed at baseline\ud and at 60 months.\ud At baseline, the majority of men and women indicated that the\ud wives did most of the cooking, deciding and shopping, although both\ud women and men indicated that they did more of the task than their\ud spouse said they did. The overall distribution of labor in cooking and deciding did not significantly change after 5 years of dietary\ud intervention at the family level; however, there was a trend towards\ud increased participation by the men in these tasks. Men's\ud participation in shopping, however, significantly increased.\ud The couples were grouped according the husbands' reported\ud increase or decrease in involvement in these tasks, and diet and lipid\ud changes were evaluated. Increased involvement in household food\ud preparation tasks did not lead to significantly greater dietary change\ud except for consumption of polyunsaturated fat. The wives of men who\ud increased their shopping reported an increase in total fat and\ud saturated fat when compared to changes seen in the other wives. Taken\ud as a group, both husbands and wives decreased their reported fat,\ud cholesterol and saturated fat consumption and increased their reported\ud carbohydrate intake in a manner similar to that suggested in Phase 1\ud of the Alternative diet. Plasma lipids remained stable in both men\ud and women. Household food-related task performance does not\ud profoundly change when couples participate in a family-based\ud intervention project, and the small changes seen do not have an effect\ud on the outcome variables