Dietary self

Existing research shows that sociodemographic factors are associated with dietary patterns among adolescents; however, little is known about when these relationships begin in children. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between dietary self-efficacy (SE) and dietary intake among children over time and by race/ethnicity, among students receiving a healthy eating and physical activity intervention. Pretest–posttest questionnaire, before and after an 8-month intervention The study was conducted in a large Midwestern metropolitan area of the USA. Students (N？=？332, Mage？=？9.1; SD？=？.61; female？=？45%, Black？=？46%) completed a questionnaire at the beginning (T1) and end (T2) of the school year. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test and a Mann–Whitney U test were used to determine if there were differences by group. SE at T1 was associated with intake (p？<？.01 to p？<？.05; except whole grains). While there were not intervention effects over time in dietary self-efficacy or intake, findings suggest that healthy eating and self-efficacy differences do not exist in children when examined by race/ethnicity, except in the case of a composite healthy eating score with White students reporting a higher intake of healthy food and a lower intake of unhealthy food overall. Future research should examine when specific differences in healthy eating and SE emerge in children or adolescents in order to develop school, home and community-based interventions that effectively disrupt differences by race/ethnicity before they occur in adolescence