Perceived race discrimination moderates dietary beliefs' effects on dietary intake.
Despite the recognized role diet plays in disease, health, and longevity, less than half the US population consumes the desired 5 fruit/ vegetable servings a day. What accounts for the disjunction between cognition and behavior? Telephone survey data from a probability sample of 308 metropolitan Washington, DC, residents confirm the contingent consistency hypothesis as one explanation. The hypothesis suggests that optimal beliefs about health outcomes of dietary intake motivate optimal dietary intake, contingent on social structural experiences. The data show that experiences with racial discrimination can lessen the tendency for optimally healthy dietary intake to follow from belief in: 1) the benefit of eating healthy diets (or harm of unhealthy diets); and 2) self-control of health outcomes. Race (a proxy for assumed race-related social structural experiences, like race discrimination) does not demonstrate this moderating or contingency effect.
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Howard University, Washington, DC 20059, USA. rmanuel@howard.edu
Ron Carmichael
RC
Manuel
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004034:Diet Surveys; D004219:District of Columbia / Q000453:epidemiology; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D005518:Food Preferences / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology; D015438:Health Behavior; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015596:Nutrition Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires