Project Number: 6251-53000-004-49
Project Type: Specific Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Sep 15, 2008
End Date: Sep 30, 2009

Objective:
An objective of the Delta Obesity Prevention Research Unit (Delta OPRU) being conducted in part under this cooperative agreement is to identify barriers and facilitators to adherence to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DG) and examine how differential profiles of adherence relate to obesity in children and adults of the Delta region. The specific objective of this cooperative agreement is to establish and support a cooperative partnership between the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) which will permit scientific work amongst Research Nutrition Scientists to construct conceptually and culturally appropriate survey tools to assess DG adherence barriers and facilitators for African-American and Caucasian children and their caregivers of the Lower Mississippi Delta region and elsewhere in the U.S.

Approach:
The Delta Obesity Prevention Research Unit (Delta OPRU), in partnership with Baylor College of Medicine and other research cooperators, will use the nominal group methodology with fifth graders and caretakers in the Lower Mississippi Delta (LMD) to identify barriers and facilitators to the adherence to national dietary and physical activity guidance for the prevention of obesity and reduced risk for obesity-related chronic disease. This data will be used to construct conceptually and culturally appropriate survey tools to further assess the adherence to the USDA Dietary Guidelines of African American and Caucasian children and their caregivers in the Lower Mississippi Delta region and elsewhere in the U.S.