UNDERSTANDING MATERNAL DIETARY CHOICES DURING PREGNANCY: THE ROLE OF SOCIAL NORMS AND MINDFUL EATING

Introduction: Serious health complications associated with excessive weight have been documented for pregnant women and their babies during pregnancy, birth and beyond. Whilst research has focused on identifying particular foods that can be either detrimental or essential for the developing baby, little is known about factors influencing pregnant women’s dietary choices. This study examined a potential external influence, descriptive and injunctive social norms, and a potential internal influence, mindful eating, on pregnant women’s self-reported diet.

Methods: Pregnant women (N = 139) completed a questionnaire that included measures of self-reported consumption of healthy foods and unhealthy foods, descriptive and injunctive norms related to diet during
pregnancy and the Mindful Eating Questionnaire (MEQ). Hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted to assess the extent to which descriptive and injunctive norms and mindful eating account for variance in
consumption of healthy and unhealthy foods.

Results: No significant associations were observed between norms and self-reported dietary behavior. Mindful eating was found to play a role in pregnant women’s eating behavior, with the awareness subscale of the MEQ significantly associated with healthy eating and the emotional subscale associated with unhealthy eating. Age was also associated with consumption of unhealthy foods such that younger pregnant women reported consuming more unhealthy snacks and fast food meals.

Conclusions: The associations between mindful eating and dietary behavior suggests that improving mindfulness related to food consumption before and during pregnancy may provide a low risk alternative to dieting in addressing gestational weight gain.