Abstract
Objective
To understand African Americans’ perceptions, barriers, and facilitators to recruitment,
enrollment, adoption, maintenance, and retention in a nutrition and physical activity
promotion program.
Design
Four focus groups were conducted.
Setting
Two community settings located in Jackson and Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
Participants
Participants (n = 28) were aged 18–50 years.
Main Outcome Measure(s)
Barriers and facilitators associated with healthy eating, physical activity, achieving
a healthy weight, and participation in a health behavior change program.
Analysis
A conventional thematic content analysis approach includes data familiarization, initial
code generation, initial theme generation, themes review, and team review for finalization
of themes.
Results
Major themes related to health behaviors and participation in a behavior change program
were identified by participants, including time constraints, costs, social support,
consistency and self-efficacy, motivation for longevity and disease prevention, physical
appearance, fear of injury/pain, social norms/stigma associated with outdoor physical
activity, body criticism from family members, and having empathic and validating program
staff support.
Conclusions and Implications
Several social determinants of health were identified as essential considerations
for promoting healthy nutrition and physical activity behaviors among African American
adult Mississippians. Cultural and spiritual implications were also identified. Study
insights inform policy approaches for designing culturally appropriate health behavior
change programs in the Deep South.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 11, 2022
Accepted:
March 21,
2022
Footnotes
Conflict of Interest Disclosure: The authors have not stated any conflicts of interest.
Identification
Copyright
© 2022 Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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