Department of Behavioral Sciences, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40536, USA.
J Rural Health. 2013 Aug;29 Suppl 1(0 1):s25-34. doi: 10.1111/jrh.12009. Epub 2013 Feb 21.
Extensive attention has been focused on improving the dietary intake of Americans. Such focus is warranted due to increasing rates of overweight, obesity, and other dietary-related disease. To address suboptimal dietary intake requires an improved, contextualized understanding of the multiple and intersecting influences on healthy eating, particularly among those populations at greatest risk of and from poor diet, including rural residents.
During 8 focus groups (N = 99) and 6 group key informant interviews (N = 20), diverse Appalachian rural residents were queried about their perceptions of healthy eating, determinants of healthy food intake, and recommendations for improving the dietary intake of people in their communities. Participants included church members and other laypeople, public health officials, social service providers, health care professionals, and others.
Participants offered insights on healthy eating consistent with the categories of individual, interpersonal, community, physical, environmental, and society-level influences described in the socioecological model. Although many participants identified gaps in dietary knowledge as a persistent problem, informants also identified extraindividual factors, including the influence of family, fellow church members, and schools, policy, advertising and media, and general societal trends, as challenges to healthy dietary intake. We highlight Appalachian residents' recommendations for promoting healthier diets, including support groups, educational workshops, cooking classes, and community gardening.
We discuss the implications of these findings for programmatic development in the Appalachian context.
人们对改善美国人的饮食摄入给予了广泛关注。由于超重、肥胖和其他与饮食相关的疾病发病率不断上升，这种关注是有必要的。为了解决饮食摄入不足的问题，需要更好地理解健康饮食的多种相互交织的影响因素，特别是在那些饮食最不健康和最容易受到影响的人群中，包括农村居民。
在 8 个焦点小组（N=99）和 6 个小组关键信息提供者访谈（N=20）中，询问了不同的阿巴拉契亚农村居民对健康饮食的看法、健康食物摄入的决定因素，以及改善他们社区居民饮食摄入的建议。参与者包括教会成员和其他非专业人士、公共卫生官员、社会服务提供者、医疗保健专业人员等。
参与者提供了与社会生态学模型中描述的个人、人际、社区、身体、环境和社会层面影响的类别一致的健康饮食见解。尽管许多参与者认为饮食知识的差距是一个持续存在的问题，但信息提供者也确定了一些个人以外的因素，包括家庭、教会成员和学校、政策、广告和媒体以及一般社会趋势的影响，这些都是健康饮食摄入的挑战。我们强调了阿巴拉契亚居民对促进更健康饮食的建议，包括支持小组、教育研讨会、烹饪班和社区花园。
我们讨论了这些发现对阿巴拉契亚地区项目发展的意义。
