Abstract
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death for African Americans (AAs) in the USA, with diet and perceived stress identified as two key factors. Fat consumption has been identified as a key contributor to poor dietary health in AAs and stress may lead to increased fat consumption. However, few studies have examined the extent to which perceived stress and intent to avoid high fat consumption are related to fat consumption in mid-life and older AAs. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between intent to avoid high fat food consumption (intention to change fat behaviors, consistency of avoiding high fat foods), fat consumption (NCI Fat Screener) and perceived stress (Cohen’s Perceived Stress Scale). Guided by the planned behavior and social cognitive theories, this study uses baseline data from a broader longitudinal church-based project to reduce CVD risk conducted with mid-life and older AA’s (n=221) in six churches across a two county area of North Florida, USA. Age, gender, educational level and marital status were controlled in the analysis. Preliminary results showed perceived stress had an inverse relationship with consistency of avoiding high fat foods (p <.01), In addition, consistency of avoiding high fat foods was negatively related to general fat consumption (p < .01). Findings suggest participants with higher stress have less ability to consistently avoid fat, and participants with higher ability to consistently avoid consuming high fat foods had lower reports of general fat consumption in their diets. Implications for practice will be discussed.