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Associations of cooking with dietary intake and obesity among supplemental nutrition assistance program participants
Since the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) helps low-income households to prepare more healthy meals, Dr. Taillie et al. (2017) believe that increasing the frequency of cooking in SNAP recipients may produce better dietary outcomes than if it was increased in non-recipients without such financial constraints. This present study focuses particularly on home cooking and eating of fast food, and their relationships with dietary consumption and weight status among these SNAP participants. Eating home cooked dinners every day generally led to marginal improvements in dietary intake (less drinking of sugar-sweetened drinks and lower prevalence of overweight/obesity) among SNAP recipients but not among non-SNAP recipients. However, these associations weakened after the analysis model was controlled for fast food consumption. Furthermore, eating at least one fast food meal per week was linked to a 9.3% higher incidence of overweight/obesity among SNAP recipients. However, incidence of either overweight or obesity was 11.6% higher in non-recipients of the program. In conclusion, SNAP participants should be encouraged to cook more often at home and to eat less fast food to improve their diets. [NPID: nutrition, nutritional program, intervention, low income, home cooking, fast food, unhealthy foods, healthy foods, obesity, overweight, cooking]
Year: 2017
