This study aimed to explore the attitudes and behaviors of Latino mothers around feeding their children. Using qualitative methods, we conducted four focus groups in Spanish with 41 Latino mothers of elementary school-age children in San Diego County, CA. Latino mothers' mean age was 41 years; 90% were foreign-born; and 74% had a high school education or less. We explored cultural viewpoints around feeding and cooking and feeding strategies used. Focus groups were analyzed based on a priori and emergent themes. The following themes around feeding emerged: feeding attitudes central to the maternal responsibility of having well-fed children and feeding behaviors that centered on cooking methods, supportive behaviors, and reinforcement strategies for "eating well." These findings increase our understanding of the Latino maternal role to feed children and can help to inform more culturally appropriate research to effectively address nutritional issues and obesity prevention in Latino children.

Purpose of review

Sleep health is a commonly overlooked component of pediatric cardiometabolic risk. Disparities in sleep duration and meeting of pediatric sleep guidelines have been well documented among at-risk populations in the United States, including Latinos. However, sleep research often fails to describe or account for contextual and cultural factors impacting the ability for Latino families to meet guidelines. The current review focuses on recent findings related to measurement of sleep duration, understanding of contextual factors that impact sleep hygiene, and interventions designed to increase sleep duration and quality among U.S. Latino families with infants, young children, and adolescents.

Recent findings

Ten studies focusing on sleep health in U.S. Latino children, using different study designs were identified. Overall, cross-sectional studies confirmed inadequate sleep among Latino children, intervention studies demonstrated promise of culturally-sensitive health behavior education for improving sleep in early childhood, and qualitative studies highlighted neighborhood and cultural factors that impact sleep quality.

Implications for clinical practice and research

Rather than new prevalence studies on adherence to sleep recommendations among Latino families, research focusing on adapting clinical guidelines to accommodate the realities of many Latino families (e.g., co-sleeping and bedsharing) will advance our knowledge. A shift towards objective measurement of the 24-h period as well as evaluating specific contextual barriers that make It challenging to meet sleep guidelines for Latino children is needed.

This study aimed to explore the attitudes and behaviors of Latino mothers around feeding their children. Using qualitative methods, we conducted four focus groups in Spanish with 41 Latino mothers of elementary school-age children in San Diego County, CA. Latino mothers' mean age was 41 years; 90% were foreign-born; and 74% had a high school education or less. We explored cultural viewpoints around feeding and cooking and feeding strategies used. Focus groups were analyzed based on a priori and emergent themes. The following themes around feeding emerged: feeding attitudes central to the maternal responsibility of having well-fed children and feeding behaviors that centered on cooking methods, supportive behaviors, and reinforcement strategies for "eating well." These findings increase our understanding of the Latino maternal role to feed children and can help to inform more culturally appropriate research to effectively address nutritional issues and obesity prevention in Latino children.

A recent University of California (UC) systemwide survey showed that 42% of UC college students experience food insecurity, consistent with other studies among U.S. college students. As part of UC's efforts to understand and address student food insecurity, we conducted 11 focus group interviews across four student subpopulations at UC Los Angeles (n = 82). We explored student experiences, perceptions and concerns related to both food insecurity and food literacy, which may help protect students against food insecurity. Themes around food insecurity included student awareness about food insecurity, cost of university attendance, food insecurity consequences, and coping strategies. Themes around food literacy included existing knowledge and skills, enjoyment and social cohesion, and learning in the dining halls. Unifying themes included the campus food environment not meeting student needs, a desire for practical financial and food literacy “life skills” training, and skepticism about the university's commitment to adequately address student basic needs. The results of this study broadly suggest there is opportunity for the university to address student food insecurity through providing food literacy training, among other strategies.

Objective

There is a need to address cultural beliefs and parenting practices regarding childhood obesity to design effective weight-control programmes for overweight/obese US Latino children. The purpose of the current study was to explore cultural beliefs about children's weight, understand parent perceptions on feeding their children, and explore barriers that interfere with a healthy lifestyle.

Design

Four focus groups were conducted in Spanish with forty-one Latino mothers of elementary school-age children from San Diego County, California between April and May 2011. Cultural viewpoints about overweight status among children and barriers to leading a healthy lifestyle were explored. Focus group discussions were analysed based on a priori and emergent themes.

Results

Three themes were identified: (i) mothers' cultural beliefs about health that are barriers to family health; (ii) mothers as primary caretakers of their family's health; and (iii) attitudes about targeting children's weight. Mothers acknowledged the idea that 'chubby is better' is a misperception, yet having a 'chubby' child was preferred and even accepted. Mothers described fatalistic beliefs that contradicted existing knowledge of chronic disease and daily demands of Western culture as barriers to practising healthy behaviours in the home as the family caretaker.

Conclusions

These findings may be used to inform more culturally appropriate research to address US Latino health. Increasing awareness of cultural beliefs and daily circumstance could help to address obesity more directly and thereby overcome some of the potential underlying barriers that might exist when involving the Latino immigrant families in obesity treatment and prevention.

Background

Latinos have had higher case counts, hospitalization rates and deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic nationally and in the state of California. Meanwhile, Latino vaccination rates remain lower than those of non-Hispanic Whites. COVID-19 vaccine nonintent, defined as intent to not vaccinate against COVID-19, among Latino individuals continues to be an issue in the state of California.

Methods

Families from three Latino longitudinal mother-child cohorts previously recruited in the San Francisco Bay Area were surveyed telephonically from February to June 2021 to assess attitudes towards vaccination against COVID-19 and prior vaccination, in general, for themselves and their children. Risk for vaccine nonintent was assessed using the Mann-Whitney rank sum non-parametric test for continuous predictors and chi-squared tests for categorical ones.

Results

Three hundred and nineteen families were surveyed from the Telomere at Birth (TAB), Hispanic Eating and Nutrition (HEN) and Latino Eating and Diabetes Cohort (LEAD). Approximately 36% from TAB and 28% from HEN/LEAD indicated COVID-19 vaccine nonintent for themselves and/or their children. Risk factors for vaccine nonintent included lower maternal age (p = 0.01), concern about vaccine side effects (p < 0.01) and prior history of a household members being infected with SARS-CoV-2 (p < 0.01) and indexes of household crowding including number of people sharing a bathroom (p = 0.048). Vaccine intent was also associated with receiving vaccine input from friends (p = 0.03), family (p < 0.01) and/or coworkers (p = 0.02) compared with those who were not planning on getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

Conclusions

Latino families living in crowded living situations who may not have received any COVID-19 advice from family, coworkers or friends are at particular risk for nonintent for vaccinatation against COVID-19. Community-based grassroots or promotor/a based interventions centered on trusted individuals with close community ties and counseling concerning vaccination against COVID-19 could help boost vaccination rates in this population group.

Background

Obesity is a risk factor for insulin resistance (IR) and metabolic disease.

Objective

To examine potential metabolic pathways linking childhood weight status to adolescent IR and metabolic risk.

Methods

Participants were 600 low- to middle-income Chilean adolescents from a cohort studied since infancy as part of an iron deficiency anemia preventive trial and follow-up study. We examined body mass index z-score at 10 y (BMIz-10y) and blood pressure, total fat, and fasting glucose, adiponectin to leptin ratio (A:L), ghrelin, and HOMA-IR at 16 y. A total count for metabolic risk factors (MRF) was calculated using the International Diabetes Federation criteria. We used path analysis to estimate pathways and model indirect effects from BMIz-10y, controlling for child age and sex and maternal body mass index (BMI).

Results

Participants were 54% male; mean BMIz-10y of 0.53 (SD = 1.02); mean MRF of 1.3 (SD = 0.9); mean HOMA-IR of 1.8 (SD = 1.3). Path analysis showed that BMIz-10y directly and indirectly related to increased MRF via A:L and HOMA-IR. Ghrelin was not in the metabolic pathway from BMIz-10y to MRF but was related to MRF via HOMA-IR.

Conclusion

These results elucidate metabolic pathways involving child weight status, IR and metabolic risk in adolescents. Childhood BMI was an indirect risk factor for adolescent cardiometabolic risk via several pathways that involved BMI, appetite hormones, markers of inflammation, and insulin resistance during adolescence. Findings illustrate the adverse effect that childhood obesity has on adolescent health outcomes, which sets precedence for health outcomes over the life course.

Evidence for the association between breastfeeding (BF) duration and later body mass index (BMI) is inconsistent. We explored how BF duration and BF type (exclusive or partial) related to BMI from childhood to young adulthood in a Chilean cohort. Infants were recruited at 6 months between 1994 and 1996 in Santiago, Chile (n = 821). Mothers reported date of first bottle and last BF; anthropometry was measured at 1, 5, 10, 16, and 23 years. We tested whether: (1) type of BF at 6 months (none, partial, exclusive) and (2) duration of exclusive BF (<1 month, 1 to <3 months, 3 to <6 months, and ≥6 months) related to BMI. At 6 months, 35% received both breastmilk and formula ("partial BF") and 38% were exclusively breastfed. We found some evidence of an association between longer BF and lower BMI z-scores at young ages but observed null effects for later BMI. Specifically, BF for 3 to <6 months compared to <1 month related to lower BMI z-scores at 1 and 5 years (both p < 0.05). Our results are in partial accordance with others who have not found a protective effect of longer BF for lower BMI.