Barriers and Strategies of Overcoming Barriers in Healthy Nutritional Behaviors from Women’s Perspective

Aims Health and behavior are closely related subjects because lots of diseases are rooted in individuals’ unhealthy behaviors and habits. The current study aimed at identifying barriers and strategies of overcoming barriers in healthy nutritional behaviors in women. Participants & Methods This qualitative study was conducted in 2014 based on content analysis. The participants were 50 married women with the age range of 18 to 50 years old referring to 4 healthcare centers in Sanandaj, who were selected by purposive sampling. Using semi-structured interviews, the data were collected through group discussions and individual in-depth interviews. A thematic analysis approach was applied for data analyses and MAXQDA 10 software was employed to analyze the data. Findings Of the total interviews and discussion groups, 200 initial codes were obtained and they were grouped into 4 categories, including individual barriers, social barriers, overcoming individual barriers, and overcoming social barriers. Lack of awareness and healthy cooking skills, unhealthy diet of parents as a negative role model, laziness of wives and women, lack of time, lack of mental relaxation, illiteracy economic issues, and the role of government were mentioned by the participants as individual and social barriers. Conclusion Barriers in healthy nutritional behaviors from women’s perspective are devided into individual and social barriers and some strategies are mentioned to overcome these barriers, including learning required skills in terms of healthy diet/nutrition, raising awareness, time management, monitoring the contaminated foods by the government, providing public information, training through media, and resolving economic problems.