Interrelationship between food security status, home availability of variety of fruits and vegetables and their dietary intake among low-income pregnant women

Objective: To (i) determine differences in the availability of variety of fruits and vegetables (F&V) at home by food seeurity status: and (ii) examine the interassociations between food security status, availability of variety of F&V at home and frequency of F&V intake, among low-income pregnant women. Design/Selling: Participants were interviewed to collect food security status, home availability of variety of F&V and frequency of F&V intake. Bivariare analyses, multivariate regression and exploratory mediation analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics version 23.0 and the PROCESS macro. Subjects: Low-income pregnant women (n 198) were interviewed if they were >= 18 years of age, in the second trimester of pregnancy, and spoke English or Spanish. Results: Low/very low food security was found among 43% of participants. Compared with fully food-secure participants, very low food-secure participants reported a lower variety of fruits (P = 0.028) and vegetables (P = 0.058) available at home. Mediation analyses indicated that through home availability of variety of fresh F&V, food security status was associated with the daily intake of F&V (indirect effect (95% CI): fresh fruits. -0.039 (-0.074, -0.013); fresh vegetables, -0.048 (-0.083. -0.023)). As food security worsened, the available variety of fresh F&V decreased, which was associated with lower intake. Conclusions: The study highlights the interlink between food security, home food environment and diet quality, and the importance of nutrition education intervention to promote a healthy home food environment and improved pregnancy outcomes among low-income women.