Racial/Ethnic Discrimination and Food Consumption: Examination in Diverse Samples.

BACKGROUND: Racial/ethnic discrimination has been linked to poor health outcomes. Effects of discrimination on health behaviors, including patterns of food consumption, may contribute to health outcomes. PURPOSE: We examined relations of discrimination to consumption of healthy and unhealthy foods in two diverse samples. Structural equation modeling was used to examine variations in associations of discrimination to consumption by the timing and type of discrimination, for healthy vs. unhealthy food, and by sample. METHODS: Study 1 included a racially and ethnically diverse sample of adults from New York City (NYC: N = 157); Study 2 included a sample of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) adults from the Denver metro area (N = 303), many of whom also identified with other racial/ethnic groups. Participants completed self-report measures of racial/ethnic discrimination, food consumption, life stressors, and sociodemographic variables. RESULTS: Structural equation models indicated discrimination was associated with food consumption. Tests of model invariance indicated that the model of discrimination to food consumption can be applied to both samples. Discrimination within the past-week was associated with more frequent consumption of both unhealthy and healthy foods, whereas lifetime discrimination was associated with more frequent consumption only of unhealthy foods. CONCLUSIONS: The data were limited to self-report measures and only the frequency of consumption was assessed. The findings suggest discrimination may contribute to health disparities through effects on food consumption. Differential effects for past-week and lifetime discrimination suggest that multiple mechanisms may be involved.

Experiencing racial discrimination may undermine health through effects on health behavior, including patterns of food consumption. In two studies, we tested whether racial discrimination was linked with food consumption, specifically the frequency with which people ate healthy and unhealthy foods. We investigated both lifetime exposure to discrimination as well as more recent (past-week) exposure as predictors of food consumption. Study 1 focused on racially and ethnically diverse adults from New York City (NYC); Study 2 focused on American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) adults from the Denver metro area. Overall, we found that higher levels of discrimination were associated with more frequent consumption of both unhealthy and healthy food. The timing of discrimination mattered. Higher levels of discrimination within the past-week were associated with more frequent consumption of healthy and unhealthy foods. In contrast, higher levels of lifetime discrimination were associated only with more frequent consumption of unhealthy food. The links between discrimination and food consumption remained significant controlling for socioeconomic status. The relations of discrimination to food consumption were similar across the diverse sample from NYC and the AI/AN sample from Denver. These findings may help researchers understand how discrimination may contribute to health disparities.

Pathways from exposure to racial/ethnic discrimination to depression: Testing a social-cognitive model.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVE: Interpersonal racial/ethnic discrimination is a risk factor for depression across the lifespan in minoritized racial/ethnic groups. This study tests a model proposing that social cognitive processes, including relational schemas, mediate the link between discrimination and depression. Relational schemas enable individuals to form mental representations of others, reflecting prior social learning and generating expectations about future social relations. Racism-related relational schemas include, among others, concerns about being rejected or invalidated, concerns about confirming negative stereotypes held by others, and cynical mistrust of others. Prior studies have typically examined the mediating role of one or two relational schemas in the association between discrimination and depression; less is known about the unique and combined effects of multiple dimensions of racism-related social cognition. METHODS: The model was tested in a convenience sample of ethnically diverse, non-white participants recruited from two sites, a community medical center (N = 136; Mage = 38, SD = 13.0) and a private university (N = 120; Mage = 19.4, SD = 1.3), yielding a consolidated sample of 256 participants (64% women). Data were collected between September 2016 and April 2018. Participants completed paper-and-pencil self-report measures of exposure to interpersonal discrimination, depressive symptoms, and eight measures of relational schemas. RESULTS: Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the eight relational schemas defined three primary dimensions: concerns about rejection and invalidation, social vigilance, and mistrust. A structural equation model in which the association between exposure to discrimination and depressive symptoms operates through latent factors representing three social-cognitive dimensions demonstrated adequate fit (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMR = 0.04). A significant mediational effect was found only for concerns about rejection and invalidation. CONCLUSION: The conceptual model supported by this study may help inform psychological interventions aimed at mitigating the detrimental effects of racial/ethnic discrimination on mental health.