Author: Lamp, Cathi
Date Published: 1989
In July, 1989 a study was conducted jointly by UC Berkeley and UCCE to study the current food habits of families whose main occupation involved farm work. A total of 95 families were interviewed: 58 families were recruited from the WIC Program and 37 from ESL classes conducted by Proteus, an adult training program for farmworkers. Five bilingual graduate students administered 24 hour food recalls, food frequency and food habit questionnaires and collected socio-economic data on the families. In addition, the following anthropomorphic data was collected on the mother and her children ages 0 to 10: height, weight, mid-arm circumference and skin-fold thickness. Rural low income Mexican American families in Tulare County appeared to be better off financially compared to 20 years ago. Correspondingly, the children now were taller than in 1969. However, these children remained slightly shorter than national samples of children and this shorter stature appeared to be related to poverty