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Thesis (M.S.)--University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, School of Public Health, 2007. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 46-05, page: 2643. Adviser: Craig L. Hanis. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 92-96).

abstract: Background: Hispanic women are at high risk for Type 2 Diabetes (T2D), in part due to their high prevalence of obesity, which may influence the development of insulin resistance and disease onset. Unhealthy eating contributes to T2D risk. Dietary patterns are the combination of total foods and beverages among individual’s over time, but there is limited information regarding its role on T2D risk factors among Hispanic women. Objective: To identify a posteriori dietary patterns and their associations with diabetes risk factors (age, BMI, abdominal obesity, elevated fasting blood glucose, and hemoglobin A1c) among overweight/obese Hispanic women. Design: Cross-sectional dietary data were collected among 191 women with or at risk for T2D using the Southwestern Food Frequency Questionnaire capturing the prior three months of intake. Dietary patterns were derived using exploratory factor analysis. Regression scores were used to explore associations between dietary patterns and diabetes risk factors. Results: The patterns derived were: 1) “sugar and fat-laden”, with high loads of sweets, drinks, pastries, and fats; 2) “plant foods and fish”, with high loads of vegetables, fruits, fish, and beans; 3) “soups and starchy dishes”, with high loads of soups, starchy foods, and mixed dishes; 4) “meats and snacks”, with high loads of red meat, salty snacks, and condiments; 5) “beans and grains”, with high loads of beans and seeds, whole-wheat and refined grain foods, fish, and alcohol; and 6) “eggs and dairy”, with high loads of eggs, dairy, and fats. The “sugar and fat-laden” and “meats and snacks” patterns were negatively associated with age (r= -0.230, p= 0.001 and r= -0.298, p<0.001, respectively). Scores for “plant foods and fish” were associated with fasting blood glucose (r= 0.152, p= 0.037). There were no other statistically significant relationships between the dietary patterns and risk factors for T2D. Conclusions: A variety of patterns with healthy and unhealthy traits among Hispanic women were observed. Being younger may play an important role in adhering to a dietary pattern rich in sugary and high-fat foods and highlights the importance of assessing dietary patterns among young women to early identify dietary traits detrimental for their health. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Exercise and Nutritional Sciences 2018

Almost twenty-five years ago, James Coleman's Equalitv of Educational Opportunity reported that "Schools make no difference." Though it was received with dismay and frustration by liberal educators, the Coleman report was not the first to indicate that public schools give unequal access to the "American dream." Since that time theorists have attempted to develop models to explain why students tend to exit the educational system with much the same social and economic potential as their parents. / Ed. D.

Evidence shows epigenetic factors influence fetal development and the size of the infant at birth. This study was seeking to find what foods and nutrients or deficits thereof, in the diets of pregnant Mexican-American, Non-Hispanic White, and Non-Hispanic Black women in the United States might be contributing to the delivery of low birth-weight infants. From this study, the researcher can make three conclusions. First, the lack and/or excess of one or many nutrients may cause low birth weight. It cannot be concluded that the absence or lack of one nutrient alone is the primary cause of low birth weight based on these analyses. Second, this research shows deficits of dietary fiber are associated with low birth weight. Third, the increased consumption of regular fruit drinks and ades and rice is associated with an increased prevalence of low birth weight in the United States. / Department of Anthropology

The thesis focuses on theme of cultural identity of Mexican Americans. The introduction is based on the common history of Mexico and the United States of America (the question of the immigration, the Chicano Movement, Chicano Spanish). Attention is paid to the conception of Mexican American literature and essayistic, poetic and narrative work of Tomás Rivera, the major representative of the Chicano movement literature. The most important part of this work consists of the analysis of some peculiar motives in Rivera's cycle ...And the Earth Did not Devour Him, that create a picture of Mexican American life (the motive of religion, despair, journey, etc.). To understand the integrity of Mexican American literature, (i.e. the literature of the Chicano Movement and the Chicana literature) Rivera is compared with Roberta Fernández's novel in six stories Fronterizas. 1

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This ethnography of spirituality explores the production of cultural practices and beliefs among a group of Texas Mexican women (Tejanas) of the post-World War II generation. These women have been involved with various social justice initiatives since the 1960s and 1970s in Texas, such as the Chicana feminist and Chicano civil rights movements. This study explains how race, ethnicity, and gender intersect and interact in these women’s geographic and spiritual borderlands to produce a pattern of change in the ways they choose to engage with religion, particularly Catholicism. While the Tejana spiritual productions examined here are in many ways distinct from the religious practices of these women’s Catholic upbringings, they also recall religious rituals and traditions from their imagined, constructed, and engaged pasts. Some women have left Catholicism for other forms of spiritual fulfillment, including earth-based, indigenous, and/or Eastern religious practices, while others have remained Catholic-identified, yet altered how they practice Catholicism. A common theme in the narratives is that of spiritual agency – the conscious decision women make to reconfigure their spiritual practices and beliefs. I explore the meaning of such acts and what they indicate about the construction of spiritual and religious identities in the borderlands. I argue that because gender structures Tejana religious experiences to such a wide extent, a critical gender analysis of religious and spiritual practices will provide deeper insight into the making of Texas Mexican culture and social relations. I examine the women’s life experiences through a methodological framework I call mujerista ethnography, which draws on oral history and research methods employed by feminist, indigenous, and Chicana/o Studies scholars. In order to further illustrate how the women’s material and spiritual needs have changed so as to require new forms of spiritual engagement, I engage in a critical self-reflection of my own spiritual journey as a Tejana raised in the Catholic faith through the use of autoethnographic research methods and testimonio. I argue that these Tejanas have extended the political, feminist, and historical consciousnesses that they cultivated in Mexican American social causes into the religious and spiritual realms. For instance, these women transferred their critique of gender politics and hierarchies of power into the social setting of organized Catholicism with new spiritual practices and understandings, effectively remaking religion and subsequently engaging in processes of self-making by changing the ways they interact with Catholicism and are affected by it. Religion, as a site of social struggle for women, is political, that is, these Tejanas transformed the spiritual into a site of resistance, resolution, and reconciliation where they disrupt and challenge hierarchies of power and create strategies for healing themselves, their communities, and the earth. / text