A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Emory College of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors Department of Anthropology in 2009.
Advisors: Craig Hadley, Peter Brown, and Richard Levinson
Employing cultural consensus frameworks, I assess the extent to which Latino parents and their children agree on children’s diets and if practices align with beliefs. Using quantitative and qualitative measures, I analyze agreement to determine if ideas are driven by distinct parent and child cultural domains or aspects of acculturation. I explore how these models are implemented with children’s anthropometric measures and ethnographic information. Using results of analysis, I suggest that children and parents have differing models unrelated to measures of acculturation. In addition, knowledge does not predict practices or children’s nutritional status. I assert that contradictory food environments contribute to the disparity between knowledge and practice. Finally, I describe the implications for the improvement of Latino children’s diets.