Journal of Pregnancy and Child Health
Open Access

Research Article

Obesity-related Dietary Behaviours among Racially and Ethnically Diverse Pregnant and Postpartum Women

Ashley Harris^1*, Nymisha Chilukuri¹, Meredith West¹, David Levine¹, Janice Henderson², Shari Lawson², Sarah Polk³ and Wendy L Bennett ^1,4,5

¹The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

²Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

³Department of Pediatrics, Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

⁴Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

⁵The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

Corresponding Author:

Ashley Harris
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Division of General Internal Medicine
Baltimore, MD, USA
Tel: 203-921-7233
Fax: 410-955-0476
E-mail: aharr101@jhmi.edu

Received date: March 21, 2016; Accepted date: April 01, 2016; Published date: April 06, 2016

Citation: Harris A, Chilukuri N, West M, Levine D, Henderson J, et al. (2016) Obesity-related Dietary Behaviours among Racially and Ethnically Diverse Pregnant and Postpartum Women. J Preg Child Health 3: 238. doi:10.4172/2376-127X.1000238

Copyright: © 2016 Harris A, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Introduction: Obesity is common among reproductive age women, and disproportionately im-pacts racial/ethnic minorities. Our objective was to assess racial/ethnic differences in obesity-related dietary behaviors among pregnant and postpartum women, to inform peripartum weight management interventions that target diverse populations. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of 212 Black (44%), Hispanic (31%) and White (25%) women, age ≥18, pregnant or within one year postpartum, in hospital-based clinics in Bal-timore Maryland in 2013. Outcomes were fast food or sugar-sweetened beverage intake once or more weekly. We used logistic regression to evaluate the association between race/ethnicity and obesity-related dietary behaviors, adjusting for sociodemographic factors. Results: In adjusted analyses, Black women had 2.4 increased odds of fast food intake once or more weekly compared to White women (CI=1.08, 5.23). There were no racial/ethnic differences in the odds of sugar-sweetened beverage intake. Discussion: Compared with White or Hispanic women, Black women had 2-fold higher odds of fast food intake once or more weekly. Black women might benefit from targeted counseling and intervention to reduce fast food intake during and after pregnancy.

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