Cardiac Patients’ Mental Representations of Diet

It just really clicked: participant-perceived outcomes of community nutrition education programs

OBJECTIVE

To understand participant-perceived outcomes of community nutrition education programs by low income adults.

DESIGN

A grounded theory approach using qualitative interviews.

SETTING

Rural and urban communities in New York State and Pennsylvania.

PARTICIPANTS

18 current and past participants in nutrition education programs for low income adults.

PHENOMENA OF INTEREST

Participants' perceived outcomes of community nutrition education programs.

ANALYSIS

Qualitative analysis derived from the constant comparative method.

RESULTS

Participants described program experiences in three linked thematic areas: (1) a range of motives for program enrollment; (2) current roles, challenges and resources as program contexts; and (3) participant-perceived outcomes experienced throughout the program that were linked to their motives for enrolling. Short- and medium-term outcomes, especially social outcomes, were important to participants; positive experiences were linked to later behavior change by participants, even among those who did not initially report change.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Participant-perceived outcomes and program satisfaction were linked to enrollment motives and modified by whether participants' current worlds provided resources to put learning into practice. Participant inputs such as enrollment motives and resources should be included in planning models, assessed at multiple points, matched to expected program outcomes, and used to guide teaching.

Personal food systems of male college hockey players

This study sought to improve the understanding of processes involved in food choice and dietary change by examining how members of a college men's ice hockey team experienced the multiple factors influencing their food choices. The study employed a theory-guided, grounded-theory approach, participant observation, and open-ended interviews with ten team members. Field notes and transcripts were analysed using the constant comparative method. Going to college and playing hockey involved adjusting to new food and athletic environments, increased personal responsibility for food choices, and new meanings for food and eating. Players viewed hockey, health, and taste as major determinants of their food practices. Hockey meant structured schedules, a social network, and performance expectations. Health meant "feeling good" for hockey, having a lean body composition, and a desirable body image. Low-fat foods were viewed generally as healthy, but as not providing taste satisfaction or reward. Players' food practices cycled through four phases over the year according to the changing meanings and importance of hockey, health, and taste. The findings advance the concept of personal food system to represent the way that a person constructs the options, barriers, trade-offs, rules, and routines in food choice in response to how s/he views his/her relationships with food and the environment.

Managing values in personal food systems

People in post-industrial societies are faced with many food products and diverse eating situations that can make food-choice decisions complex. This study examined the ways that people managed values in making food choices in various contexts. An analysis of 86 semi-structured, in-depth qualitative interviews from a diverse population of urban adults living in upstate New York revealed that all participants used a personal food system, which was a dynamic set of processes constructed to enact food choices. Within these personal food systems people managed the five main food-related values of taste, health, cost, time and social relationships, and other less prominent values of symbolism, ethics, variety, safety, waste and quality. The salience of these values varied among the participants as well as across the eating situations that confronted each participant. Participants used three main processes in their personal food systems: (i) categorizing foods and eating situations; (ii) prioritizing conflicting values for specific eating situations; and (iii) balancing prioritizations across personally defined time frames. Understanding the personal food systems people use to help them make food choices can be useful for developing theories about eating behavior and communicating health messages related to food and eating.

Sample extensiveness in qualitative nutrition education research

OBJECTIVE

Extensiveness represents the amount of information gathered in qualitative research. This study examined sample extensiveness in qualitative nutrition education research.

DESIGN

Retrospective analysis was performed on articles published in the Journal of Nutrition Education (JNE) from 1969 to 1999 (Volumes 1 to 31).

SUBJECTS

Content analysis was used to code articles and the studies they reported as units of analysis.

OUTCOME MEASURES

Articles were coded to determine whether they included one or more studies using qualitative research and, if so, the types of qualitative studies performed, the sample extensiveness of each study, and mention of sample extensiveness limitations in the article.

STATISTICAL ANALYSES

The statistics used were univariate (counts, percentages, means, medians, modes, ranges) and bivariate (chi-square, correlations).

RESULTS

Of the published JNE articles, 71 (8%) used qualitative methods, and most (85%) qualitative articles were published in the 1990s. Some (19%) of these articles reported using multiple qualitative methods. The 30 studies using individual interviews interviewed an average of 45 people (range 15-155). The 38 studies using group interviews averaged 15 groups (range 1-180) and 141 people (range 9-900). Ten studies used observation/fieldwork, and eight used other types of qualitative research, with mixed [corrected] patterns of sample extensiveness in those studies. Few articles made specific statements about limitations based on sample extensiveness.

IMPLICATIONS

Sample extensiveness in qualitative research in JNE varied considerably. Future qualitative research would benefit from more explicit attention to sample extensiveness.