Cultural Food Practices and Their Potential Role in Mitigating Disordered Eating Among American Indian/First Nations...

Explore the relationship between disordered eating and engagement in cultural food practices in a sample of American Indian/First Nations (AI/FNs) adolescents.

Using interviewer-administered surveys data derived from Healing Pathways (N = 661), a longitudinal community-based participatory research study with Midwest AI/FN communities, we examined disordered eating, cultural food practices, and related sociodemographic variables in AI/FN adolescents using data from two time points/waves of this larger longitudinal study. We examined the structure of a disordered eating questionnaire using exploratory factor analysis to reveal psychometric properties of the questionnaire, resulting in three distinct disordered eating constructs "binge eating," "obsessive food behaviors," and "altered feelings about body." Associations with cultural food practices and these disordered eating constructs were examined using adjusted and unadjusted linear regression models.

Greater engagement in cultural food practices was significantly associated with lower levels of "altered feelings about body" in both unadjusted (β = -0.27, standard error [SE] = 0.04, p < .001) and adjusted models (β = -0.11, SE = 0.05, p < .05). Identifying as female was linked to higher levels of both "obsessive food behaviors" (adjusted β = 0.36, SE = 0.12, p < .05) and "altered feelings about body" (adjusted β = 1.65, SE = 0.16, p < .001).

Participation in cultural food practices may potentially play an important role in creating and sustaining healthy eating behaviors for AI/FN youth. Future research should consider the impact of disordered eating on nutrition-related health behaviors, as well as the potential protective role of cultural food practices against unhealthy eating behaviors.