Frederica Hargreaves
Research Mentor(s): Katherine Bauer
Mentor Department: Nutritional Sciences
Authors: Brian Oberly, Heidi Weeks, Frederica Hargreaves, Katherine Bauer, Michelle Clayson
Session: Session 4 (1:00pm – 1:50pm)
Presentation Type: Poster 55
Abstract
The nutritional quality of meals served to growing children is essential for their development,
well-being, and long-term health outcomes, making family meal healthfulness a key priority.
Prior research has established associations between the healthiness of family meals and risks
from long-term health conditions like obesity (Mu, 2017). Therefore, understanding factors that
promote parents’ provision of healthy family meals is a research priority. Sleep is one of the
most fundamental activities in human life, yet often under-prioritized by parents and
professionals (Colten et al., 2025). It is unknown whether sufficient sleep among parents can
contribute to their ability to offer healthy meals to their families. The objective of this study is to
expand current literature by evaluating family meal quality, using HMI scores, and maternal
sleep quality, using PSQI scores, to thereby examine associations between these two factors. To
accomplish this objective, we used data from the SPROUT study. SPROUT enrolled mothers of
3 to 3.5 year children. The Healthy Meal Index (HMI), a novel assessment tool, was used to
score the dietary quality of foods served at up to 2 usual family meals. The Pittsburgh Sleep
Quality Index (PSQI) was completed by mothers to assess aspects of their sleep including
duration, disturbances, and overall quality. Bivariate tests were used to analyze associations
between variables. Our findings revealed a significant but weak inverse relationship between
HMI scores and PSQI scores (r = -0.19, p = 0.001), indicating that better meal quality was
associated with better sleep quality. We additionally examined factors that may contribute to both
maternal sleep and HMI. While employment status and childcare hours were not significantly
related to HMI or PSQI scores (all p > 0.05), the measure of mothers’ self-regulation (BRIEF-A
GEC score) was associated with both HMI and PSQI scores (r = -0.13, p = 0.03; r = 0.49, p <
0.0001, respectively), suggesting self-regulation may play a role the associations between
maternal sleep and family meal quality. These results can inform interventions and further
research for both healthier meal behaviors and quality sleep practices, ultimately supporting
optimal childhood development and long-term health.
