Change and Continuity in Low-Income Working Mothers' Food Practices for Young Children in Response to Life Events.

Objective: To understand how changes in low-income mothers' work, home, and childcare environments impact their food practices for young children.

Methods: The grounded theory, theory-guided, design included two in-depth qualitative interviews (6 to 8 months apart) with each of 19 low income, working/student mothers of Head Start children, living in a rural county in Upstate New York. Interviews covered mothers' experiences of employment, school, family, household, and childcare events over one school year and whether and how events changed child food practices.

"Doing our best to keep a routine:" How low-income mothers manage child feeding with unpredictable work and family schedules.

Significant changes in work and family conditions over the last three decades have important implications for understanding how young children are fed. The new conditions of work and family have placed pressures on families. The aim of this study was to explore the work and family pressures shaping the ways parents feed their young children on a day-to-day basis.