"She Looks out for the Meals, Period": African American Men's Perceptions of How Their Wives Influence Their Eating Behavior and Dietary Health

Objective: Women play a critical role in men's dietary health, but how men think about the nature and mechanisms of their wives' influence on their eating behavior is not well understood. This study examined how African American men described the roles their wives played in shaping their e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Health psychology 2013-04, Vol.32 (4), p.447-455
Main Authors: Allen, Julie Ober, Griffith, Derek M., Gaines, Henry C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aged
Biological and medical sciences
Black American people
Black or African American - psychology
Black or African American - statistics & numerical data
Black People
Couple and family
Diet - ethnology
Diet - psychology
Diets
Eating Behavior
Eating behaviour
Female
Focus Groups
Food Preferences - ethnology
Food Preferences - psychology
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Gender Identity
Health
Human
Human Males
Humans
Illness and personality
Interpersonal Influences
Interpersonal Relations
Male
Meals - ethnology
Men
Men's Health - ethnology
Michigan
Middle Aged
Middle aged men
Nutrition
Personality, behavior and health
Preferences
Psychology and medicine
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Sex Roles
Social psychology
Spouses
Spouses - ethnology
Spouses - psychology
Wives
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Summary:Objective: Women play a critical role in men's dietary health, but how men think about the nature and mechanisms of their wives' influence on their eating behavior is not well understood. This study examined how African American men described the roles their wives played in shaping their eating behavior. Methods: Thematic content analysis was used to analyze data from nine exploratory focus groups conducted with a convenience sample of 83 African American men who were middle aged or older and lived in southeast Michigan. Results: Men perceived having more freedom to choose what they ate while eating out, even when accompanied by their wives, compared with at home. The men indicated their wives influenced what they ate at home more than their own preferences. They described traditional gendered food roles at home and were satisfied that their wives played a dominant role in household food preparation and decision making. Men had mixed feelings about wives' efforts to prepare healthier meals. While they appreciated that their wives cared about their health, the men felt they were rarely consulted on how meals could be healthier and often disliked the healthy changes their wives made. The men prioritized keeping their wives happy, preserving spousal division of roles, and maintaining marital harmony over participating in food decision making or expressing their personal food preferences. Conclusions: Interventions to improve married African American men's eating behaviors need to explicitly consider that men may prioritize marital harmony and the preservation of spousal food roles over their tastes, preferences, and desired food decision making roles.
ISSN:0278-6133
1930-7810
DOI:10.1037/a0028361