Focus Group Session 5 Demonstration

good afternoon welcome to our focus group my name is dick Krueger and I work here at the University of Minnesota and I I'm helping on the study that deals with healthy healthy living and healthy eating habits with me is Mary Ann Casey and she's going to be taking notes as we go through our conversation today you've been invited because you have some insights about healthy families and that's going to be our topic today Oh what is account what does a healthy family do what are the activities are involved in a healthy family and how are they different from other families and so we're going to be talking about that I've got a few questions I want to go through a few ground rules that will be helpful if you have a cell phone I'd like you to put it on the quiet mode if you we are going to be audio recording I have a audio recorder right here that will be helpful and we'd like to make it like a conversation so feel free to add to what others have to say in the group we don't expect everyone to have the same views or experiences we likely will see differences now one of our ground rules too is that we we're going to be talking about families but we don't want names of families either the family members or their last thing so well it just we'll just we'll just call it our healthy family and it might be parents or children just refer to them as parents or children in the family as we carry on with our conversation um let's though take a moment and find out a little bit about you and who's in this group and what I'd like to do is go around the table and because we start here and tell us your name and then tell us what do you most enjoy doing in your free time okay well my name is Cara Ullman and sure well so I'm a student so a lot of my time is either occupied working or you know reading doing homework for school so when I do get some time on myself I like to I actually like to bother who made the site an evening out with some animals and then when it's night felt like this find something active to say like spike or it's gonna run yeah something active preferably with friends or family thank you you know my name is cathlin Dara's and i in my free time i we have two young kids so we spend a lot of time as a family and that's what occupies discovering the cities and just like you know being active being outside and just entertaining them is where my time pose my name is Laura I in the summer I'd like to have my hands is dirt I like to do gardening and in the wintertime I like to bake my name is Hannah um I probably spend most all of my free time doing improv either performing or watching my name is Noah and it's not because we're talking about healthy families but I actually do like doing this I like running all the time I try to get a run in every single day it's in the summer there's less clothes if it's the winter there's lots of layers what we want you to do for for our discretion of days to visualize a family whose members are of normal weight and are healthy and it might be your family it might be someone else that you know through school through work through your your faith you might be related to them what we want to know is how this family is different from other families around them what makes them distinctive and we're going to ask you a number of questions about this family well what what's the first way is just sort of a broad question when you think of this family what's the first thing first thing that that's them apart from other families maybe in the community or in the area what's the first thing that sets them apart and we're not going to go around the table is anyone who wanted a engine what's the first thing you'd set some apart they do things together time outdoor activities together yeah like even it does not even just like physical activity like I'm thinking of a family that cooks together watch TV together has like conversations beyond just how was your day no yeah I may be like people gather thing cuz like the family that I'm thinking of the kids especially are extremely like excited to eat healthy foods for snacks and I think part of that is that they're involved in those decisions like they help make the food every night and they know how to cook and even like I feel like it's meal to Andy actually just having specifically like you know your day planned ahead of time not having to actually go on spur of moment decisions so that's actually I find it helps a lot and I think the thing about the kids being involved too is like a lot of times I feel like what maybe it makes other families reach for up more unhealthy options might be if the parents are scrambling on their own but if the kids are actively involved and they're not also like sitting there begging for unhealthy food maybe it's easier they are always outside with their dog like even in the winter months the dog goes on many walks they have an age playing backyard and so I really feel like the dog as a member of that family like meeting the dogs needs helps all of the family members they act is everyone walk the dog everyone takes during walking starting looks like the daddy knows in the devil but many daughters and not not that the family for me isn't the dot isn't a dog specifically but it's like the whole neighborhood is always outside like they're always doing stuff together so it's like why after work would you all sit inside because everyone's eating lunch everyone's eating dinner on their patios and the kids are running around together so obviously in the summer more so so it's like this thing that's like pulling people out I was going to say family man think you know they live in a community that's the roads are a lot more organic that's not like a grid and there's a lot of green space and so encourages you to get lost go outside and have fun so okay um let's talk about specifically about food and what does this family do we talked about this a bit already where you talked about meals together but is it what it what is distinctive about the food that this these families eat or have I think the family that I think of it and you know it comes with knowing like what a proper diet is and certainly they have their lifetimes where they splurge on ice cream or something but I can always tell that they are very intentional about incorporating like lots of vegetables and their food and if they don't they like they make a comment about it or like they they notice I go we don't have we have a lot of carbs in here we should try and like even more like a vegetarian diet max or like a bit more veggie meal next time so they're very intentional a lot like how much vegetable they the family I'm thinking of makes a big deal make some production out of everything so if they're getting ice cream they're going on a bike ride to get ice cream or if they're having dessert they're like getting creative as a family about what kind of dessert and maybe that dessert is actually a fruit salad or they're thinking of ways to make healthy foods more fun like letting their kids think about like what would make this kind of silly like who should we add like something weird to it even and then that makes a lot of fun so they don't really do it together but they incorporate things that sort of our interesting creativity of the meals sort of take on another dimension okay what else they really love and one of the things that I noticed about them is that they don't have any mmm there's no sense of like good foods or bad foods it's like there's a place for all foods but we modulate it you know so there's like you know vegetables or something we do every day but treats are something that we do occasionally and we're you know we're passionate about all those different kinds of foods but we don't we don't we yeah we never make comments about how we shouldn't be eating this or how it's bad to eat it or how we're gonna have to you know make up for it later or anything like that we enjoy the food we have in any given moment what I got food is broccoli or ice cream yeah I also noticed um there were like much more willing to try things and the family I think I'm like they don't have kids it's two adults but they love trying different foods and if there's something kind of not necessarily trending but if it's just like something been noticed I've seen in a cookbook they're really more apt to try it and I think that's broad in their kind of perspectives I was like you know different ways to incorporate kale or you know different ways to incorporate broccoli and you know kind of things that maybe I'm more bitter or something they and find ways to make it more appetizing and they're excited about it I think I'm actually thinking you've all along the same line as we're like you and the family I'm thinking of is like they have kids and they actually do try out a lot of the variety of different things and the beard cooked at home are being at a restaurant it's just that trying that variety and trying to get more of a different diets incorporated into the everyday I think to going back to laurels point the kids in the family I'm thinking of nothing's really like off-limits or it's not like they never have sweets which i think is important because then when they're going out I mean they're of all different ages but they can buy their own food at like a gas station or going to friends houses it's not so novel just like have a bag of chips because they have chips at home - or like they have sweets at times it's just that they're getting excited about the healthier foods more often - yeah I was gonna say about like modulating the food like the family I haven't thinking of like has like two categories of food one is like your daily food and it's meant to you know so stay in you and you know it can be tasty but you know then there's like splurging food really like it's a treat and so they it's a lot less frequent but they spend more money and savor that that's how they kind of balance it out yeah how did they you talked earlier but I'm getting excited about but how does that work how do you how do they get people excited about food like what did they do to do that um well I think for the kids the parents model it a lot like when they say oh my gosh I'm so hungry for a snack I can't wait to eat these blueberries that is model done for their children but I think also it's what I mentioned before about like getting creative about the way it was incorporated or like the way of like adding something silly or fun to it or making it into a game like I remember one time we all made popsicles but they were really actually just frozen fruit but we like meet them into popsicles in a popsicle maker and then eat them later on the porch let me move along about I want to talk about physical activity what what's distinctive about them in terms of physical activity what do they do how are they different from others around them I'm smiling because I'm thinking of one of the members it's very goal-oriented and so everything not everything for him but for a while it was like he was in competitive weightlifting and he was in competitive like amateur soccer league so he's just kind of add another level um but seeing how that's kind of trickled over into his partner and like I can certainly see that because she's also looked at her own physical activity as you know how can I make this just like a step above what I'm aiming to do like I don't like running but how can I make this more of a goal and so that I can like get to it and not and make it um something I feel accomplished and not something that I'm like okay like we're not around but it wasn't that great so he's in him like a team sport thing she's more individual I'd say they're both they both played soccer so they both have like a team mentality but they also you know now that they're out of soccer and out of that team environment they still hang on to kind of individual goals and I think I think for like him it is for both of them it's it's about goals and just you know making sure that whatever they're doing at wrong physical activity you know they have their leisurely but if they're really gonna work out they they want to set kind of this level that they're gonna re enjoy and just to kind of make the most of it okay yeah what else wait is this something that people do regularly or periodically how often are they physically active how I think limiting screen time is really really important and for the adults and kids not not just for young people but you know and I and I guess I've seen this in my own life you know when you're watching Netflix and the show ends like it'll start the next one for you if you don't turn it off within 15 seconds right and so I think that I think that just you that like screens tend to be something that ties you to a given location and the more you are not interacting with the screen the more clear you are to just like move about your world and so I think this family kind of naturally gravitates towards activities that involve body movement and it's not that they're running right it's not that they're doing a team sport they're just using their bodies and everyday ways and and I think that one of the reasons that they do that so much is that they are very careful about not spending a lot of time in front of screens in the family you're talking about where are this Green Bay in sort of the made the centerpiece of a game room are they to the cider well there's only I think as far as I know there's only one TV in a household so that's part of it right is that like kids don't have their own TVs I think everybody in this family has a cell phone but they're just not like they don't like they have a game system but they're very clear about when week they use it right so like like only on Saturdays only for 30 minutes right so it's those sorts that sort of like process things that sort of the expectation is clear everybody knows when the 30 minutes is over we're gonna move on to something else notice something else can be reading a book if there's something else doesn't have to be just just the fact that you're moving on it makes it that's much much more likely that you're gonna move on to something that uses your body yeah and the family I'm thinking of the TV is in the basement and it's very far away from everything else and I think the majority of the time the family hangs out in the kitchen living room or deck and so it's not an obvious choice it's a intentional decision to go watch TV um I don't know the winter seems kind of like I'm ignoring it cuz I have no idea what they do in order to be honest but in the summer it's just like oh yeah well especially like the parents model at 2:00 they're like yeah we're going on a family bike rider like um oh you have like goals in gym class like I'll help you with those and I know when I was with them all the times they just loved like competitions so you know we would do so much like relay stuff or and it was just outside so it was easy I can say the family I'm thinking of this person and his sister are like repeated in state for cross-country cross-country skiing and track so very athletic people and their parents also trained with them outside of practice and I think that helped a lot because it showed like parent interests doing things as a family makes it so much like when you're all of you know that seems to be a common theme that's cutting through is the these families do things together they're not isolated broken off in parts parents children together it's actually you know deliberately planning and scheduling time out for actual physical activity so like you know making sure that the kids get to a place like you know a playground or making sure that they get in the wintertime they get to like you know a gym stablishment are like you know a lot of the trampoline parts of everything and having that resource to actually be able to sort of like you know go in as a family and be able to like it on jump or half an hour that's the kind of thing that actually like you know I have observed has been like you know that the common bond for them over the winter months and then like you know in the summertime it is a lot of outdoor activities and making sure that like you know there's a lot of time spent in the neighborhood that I can oh whatever it is that you know just for the kids to be bike riding and for the parents to be like you know tracking along or like you know for everybody to be like writing but just having that like group time together I guess is there a family you're talking about is there a person in the family that kind of provides a leadership or the energy to do that or is it equally divided among the whole family I feel like it is a conscious decision by both parents to actually like you know especially they have a little boy who actually means a lot of data physical activity and like you know to make sure that he gets his wiggles out and to have to have that like you know in the forefront of your to be able to actually say well you know what they need we need to do this together for him to actually also feel part of it but we also need to do this together I also think there are structural variables like we mentioned before with the roads are like living in a certain neighborhood I think thinking about where I live now in like Uptown in the city it's harder for me to imagine it operating in the same way versus like a small suburb on a lake where they lived in the neighborhood the kids could be running up and down the street go jump in the lake two seconds away all then all the yards are connected it's like a very very safe neighborhood a lot of kids around I think that helps a lot I think it's like an undercurrent in a lot of what we talked about but I don't know that anybody explicit yes that is that I think - that I'm describing is relatively pretty affluent and you know a lot of the things I talked about in terms like some of them are some of the things I talked about it would be available to any family so the idea that like we don't label food is good or bad that is available to any family but you know just the ability to like do meal to afford nutritious food to do meal planning to have leisure time on the weekends that they can spend together because the parents are not always working both our privileges of people who are financially well off our evening time off yes great so I just want to acknowledge that a lot of the things that I'm describing are things that would be an enormous struggle in families that have fewer financial resources yeah and I like made a statement about just this person having the education - and all of those other structural factors but just the knoweth all to be like we need more vegetables in our diet we need to be intentional about physical activities that itself you know depending on maybe your schooling or who we grew up with you might not have that much embedded in to do that yeah I think - like those structural variables can influence that - like the family I'm picking up is not super wealthy but they've made choices that have put them into a position where you know the neighborhood watches their kids if they can't like their kids can still be outside with all of the neighborhood even if they're working or they live in a fairly like cheap place to live to be honest so it's like I mean still fairly well-off but like I think that there are definitely other likes truck fill factories that can help alleviate but it just seemed like that is a creative social company connections they actually also alleviate even if they do have those like connections yeah especially in a state like Minnesota when it you know the outside is inaccessible for half of the year you know you have to have funds to be able to go to a gym yeah there's stuff like that that also I think cross-country cross-country skiing I'm like you might not want to bring your kids on the bus like transportation sure yeah and I just I just keep thinking back like this particular person just her influence on my life um like she when we I think I know I what positive deviance says but like I just think about how much she's like educated me and influenced me to know how to do these things and yeah if you don't have that like even I think even if you know how that you need these things or I guess River you don't have people in your life to kind of influence you in that way to like get you outside or to like not sit around the TV and do something inside um that's a big thing like I probably would be a much less your person if I didn't have this person in my life okay I think we're gonna we'll stop and let's have a little quick discussion about both the questions Mary Ann do we have more copies of the questions that we can share with those who are in the group I'm impressed with with your observations I think there's a number of interesting patterns that are beginning to emerge that it would be interesting to see if those things held up in larger studies but any comments from anyone who watched this about what did you think of this group or pretty family particularly about moderating or from a focus group standpoint any observations any questions I'll tell you though this group was a wonderful group I mean you couldn't ask for a more engaged oh don't assume your groups are going to be like this because they were ready to talk they had clear examples every one of them was on topic you stayed on topic I mean moderating this is a piece of cake because you just sort of sit back and let him talk and and it's you know and they were and the one thing that I would do because they were so insightful I would bring them in to try to figure out the larger patterns that are happening hit well you already had Laurel does you want Laurel as a participant yeah because she already was starting to do analysis so she was saying here's what I'm seeing you know about you know so that that is what you want to do is say what do you what do you like that one associative and I think in your observation too about are we talking about things as just affluent people do or is this something that normal people poor people can do as well because oftentimes these are problems that people with limited resources really have and yeah who's going to say I'm just naturally started answering yeah yeah they were well was nice every time I would ask for something they would give me more rich information and so again this this group was a piece of cake you were very good rib recruitment yes yes the Sarah were you gonna say something or something different then what the right answer is and that mean just because this is an activity but I found that an interesting choice well this is one that Mary and I struggle with a bit about how to how to do this one option we were thinking about was to visualize two families one with unhealthy habits and one with healthy habits and then contrast the two but I think if you were really and we were trying to find something that will work for this but if you were doing them out in the community and you're doing them on positive deviance you would want to ask families about their own behaviors yeah you wouldn't be asking about somebody else we were just trying to find something that people could talk like it'd be easy for people to talk about here so the question amount would definitely be different when you're doing them out in the community question actually it may be outside of the discussion group but like in on recruitment and like you know like specially going back to the garbage hauling in st. Paul or in the suburb of st. Paul and like to me it almost sounded like okay how do you I guess how do you control for not having people with like you know very strong opinions to come into a focus group because really if you have people who actually have such stronger focus like for strong opinions on it obviously you're going to get the answer off though you shouldn't be touching it right how do you control for that kind of fight you know it's almost impossible because you don't know those things one of the things you can say and later you know as we did more of them we would say that we know this topic some people feel strongly about then we acknowledge that right at the very beginning some people feel strongly and and others people don't feel quite so strongly and both of those are okay we just ask you to be respectful so we don't want people bullying each other or or diminishing each other but treat each other interests but it's okay to get excited that's alright as long as you're not bullying somebody with your excitement the other way to think about that is there are topics that are just polarizing right now and for those topics what if you wanted to do focus groups really they're about an issue that's polarizing let's say it's vaccinating children mm-hmm what you might want to do is photo do focus groups with people who vaccinate their children and then do focus groups with people who don't vaccinate their children and just keep them saffron oh and you're trying to figure out what is theirs when their beliefs around their what are their practices and then once you had done enough of those you might try to bring them together and have a conversation but that's going to be a more difficult one to do you

Channel: UMN_MCH

Views: 75,283

Keywords:

Id: scyTIRNDu_A

Length: 32min 3sec (1923 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 16 2019