Page 28 - BusinessWest February 3, 2025

Food for Thought
Diet Quality Suffers for Women During, After Pregnancy
“You’re only capable of changing your diet if your income and your environment support it. And that, I think, is something that a lot of people forget.”
ANNA MARIA SIEGA-RIZ
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year postpartum. Over- all, they scored high (A+) on eating enough
Diet
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New research from Anna Maria Siega-Riz, professor of Nutri- tion and Epidemiology and dean of the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at UMass Amherst, finds a per-
vasive low-quality diet among pregnant and postpartum individuals, reflecting “an urgent need for widespread improvement.”
The study, recently published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and co-led by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Insti- tute of Child Health and Human Development, assessed diet quality in the same individuals from the beginning of pregnancy through one year postpartum. Few studies have analyzed diet quality in preg- nancy and postpartum in the same participants.
Siega-Riz and her colleagues used the USDA’s Healthy Eating Index (HEI), which is based on federal dietary guidelines, to develop a diet quality score for participants in the Pregnancy Eating Attri- butes Study (PEAS). Because diet quality during pregnancy and postpartum impacts short- and long-term health outcomes for par- ent and child, the team of perinatal nutritionists and epidemiologists aimed to identify risk factors for low diet quality to develop effective interventions.
The overall average HEI score for the study participants’ diets was ranked on a 0-100 scale at 61.6. On a traditional A-F scale, the grade would be barely passing, a D, although that score is 10% higher than the average HEI score of the overall U.S. adult popula- tion. The HEI score is based on the adequate consumption of nine foods — total fruit, whole fruit, total vegetables, greens and beans, whole grains, dairy, total protein, seafood, and plant proteins, as well as fatty acids — and the consumption of four foods in modera- tion: refined grains, sodium, added sugars, and saturated fats.
Among all the study participants, HEI scores were stable from
early pregnancy through one year postpartum. But researchers noted differences in scores according to sociodemographic charac- teristics, weight status, lactation duration, and tobacco smoking.
“You would think that pregnant women are highly motivated to eat better during pregnancy, precisely because they are pregnant. And that’s true in certain populations,” said Siega-Riz, the study’s senior author. “You saw higher-income women having a higher-quali- ty diet, and lower-income women having a lower-quality diet.”
She noted that lower-income women may be working multiple jobs and either don’t have access to higher-quality foods, can’t afford them, or need more overall support from family, friends, and health- care providers. “You’re only capable of changing your diet if your income and your environment support it. And that, I think, is some- thing that a lot of people forget.”
Unmarried study participants and those participating in more than one federal assistance program recorded the lowest mean HEI scores. In addition, a higher body-mass index (BMI) was associated with a lower-quality diet. The highest mean HEI scores were seen in participants with higher education and among those who reported never smoking.
“What women eat during pregnancy is mostly the same things they eat in the postpartum period, with the exception of a few foods,” Siega-Riz said. “They sometimes return to caffeine and alcohol and resume eating more refined carbohydrates after giving birth.”
The study participants’ diets were assessed at six points — in each trimester of pregnancy and two months, six months, and one
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Grow
the seedlings, and people choose what they want to grow, so it’s culturally appropriate.”
The nonprofit’s food-access advisory committee — as noted earlier, staffed with people with lived experi- ence of food insecurity — works to put together these programs, determining what people in low-income housing want and need to enjoy healthy, local food.
There’s also a climate-impact element to a thriving local food economy, Klein noted.
“It’s becoming more and more apparent, especially with climate change, that we need to grow things here in our community. Instead of shipping fruits and veg- etables 3,000 miles from California, creating massive amounts of pollution along the way, we are able to affect the climate economy as well.
“So we’re lowering carbon emissions, supporting local families to grow their own food, and supporting farmers to grow food for this community. When we do our farmers markets, we’re seeing people purchase goods that came from 10 miles away, that were picked that morning or the day before. It’s amazing.”
And, when compared to vegetables sold in super- markets that were picked two weeks ago or more, studies have shown that fresher produce is more nutrient-dense, Klein said.
“It’s anecdotal, but the people who participate in our food-access program tell us that they have gotten healthier, that their diabetes markers are much better since they started participating in our program. Fami- lies are eating more vegetables. Kids are responding better to meals with local vegetables because they just
taste better. So we really do have an ability to help people’s health, which improves a community.”
Lending a Hand
On Jan. 1, Grow Food Northampton announced that Michael Skillicorn — an eight-year veteran of the nonprofit who has served as program director and associate director — recently joined Klein as co-exec- utive director.
“This is something that has been in the works for about four years,” Klein said. “We’re working to flatten the hierarchy, and it was incumbent upon us to share leadership at the top. Michael is an extraordinary individual, really talented, and I’m so excited to work side by side with him to direct the organization to be a larger organization.”
To continue to expand, GFN needs to grow its funding, which is raised solely through grants (from both government and private institutions) and dona- tions. Anyone can support its work by visiting grow- foodnorthampton.org and clicking the donation button.
“Were we to get an amazing windfall, I think we would definitely expand our food-access programming so we can serve more people in the community who are food-insecure,” Klein said. “We would like to work a lot more with unhoused people to make sure that they’re eating fresh, healthy, nutritious food. We see it as a cornerstone of their health and well-being, and it would give them more of a leg up to find solutions to the fact that they are unhoused.”
“It’s becoming more and more apparent, especially with climate change, that
we need to grow things here in our community. Instead of shipping fruits and vegetables 3,000 miles from California, creating massive amounts of pollution along the way, we are able to affect the climate economy as well.”
It’s not a new idea, she added. “During the pan- demic, we were setting up markets outdoors in loca- tions that were adjacent to homeless encampments. We were able to serve those communities better, but we would like to do that as much as possible in the future. And we’d love to expand our education pro- gramming. It’s all a matter of being able to raise the funds to do all of that.”
Volunteers are always welcome, too.
“There are so many ways that people can sup-
port nonprofit organizations, and money is just one
of them,” Klein said. “We also have lots of volunteer opportunities in everything that we do, from our food- access program to our land-stewardship work. We have a range of ways in which people can get involved in this, and not just as donors.” BW
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