Table 2. Low-income, overweight, African-American mothers' barriers to healthy eating in pregnancy.

Themes	Representative quotes
3. Taste and cost are strong drivers of food intake	27 yo,a overweight, nulliparous: “I tried Crystal Light and the diet drinks, but they had a weird taste. A lot of diet drinks are disgusting to me. I don't drink diet drinks.” 27 yo, overweight, multiparous: “I might call my mom, ‘I want this. I got a taste for this’. And that's mostly the Lay's potato chips and cream cheese. I gots to have that in the house. I cannot run out of that at all.” 32 yo, overweight, multiparous: “I really have to stretch it (food stamps). Because my son, he'll want something. You know kids. So I try to make sure I have what he needs… Sometimes I do get less for myself. I'm not complaining about it because as long as he's happy, everything's fine.”
4. Limited access to healthy food, but easy access to unhealthy food	31 yo, obese, multiparous: “I don't get to the market that often. I go maybe twice a month. Maybe. So it's stuff like fruit, as quick as it's in the house, it's gone. So it's there a couple of days tops. There's nothing in the neighborhood. So I actually don't get it (fruit) as often as I'd like.” 22 yo, obese, multiparous: “At school I don't bring my own lunch, so I buy fast food. During lunch time. There don't be that many places around to get healthy food.” 21 yo, obese, multiparous: “The supermarket is good. But the corner store - when you're out and the corner store's right there, you just want something to snack on. I mean, if the corner store was a whole mile, two miles from your house, you would be like, ‘no, I'm not going there’. But it's right there. It's 15 steps and you're there.”
5. Food supply fluctuates each month	22 yo, overweight, nulliparous: “My brother, he's like, ‘if you don't want me to eat your stuff, just tell me’. And I told him. I said, ‘these Nutri-grain bars are mine’. And then he'll just eat all my stuff like, ‘oh, I forgot, I didn't know’. So I try to hide them…but then they call me stingy.” 20 yo, obese, nulliparous: “When I get to the end of the month, I'll probably still have some food, and I'll be like, ‘I don't want that stuff no more. I want something new’.” 26 yo, obese, multiparous: “We (household with cousin and cousin's children) all share. We all get food stamps and we shop together. Her kids is kind of picky, so I just buy what I want and tell everybody, ‘don't eat it’. And she just buy what she need, and we just go equal shares on all other stuff.”
6. Lack of meal schedule persists in pregnancy	19 yo, overweight, multiparous: “I could just sit there and eat snacks and not eat food. It depends on how I'm feeling.” 22 yo, obese, multiparous: “I've never been a person that ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Probably just lunch and dinner.” 21 yo, obese, multiparous: “I just want something to put in my stomach while I watch TV… (I'm not hungry) most of the time, no. Just eating ‘cause it’s there.”
7. Pregnancy-related fatigue and sleepiness inhibit cooking	20 yo, obese, multiparous: “When I get tired, I eat more of the fast food. ‘Cause it’s more of, ‘I'm not cooking tonight, we're going to find something to eat outside’…a Chinese store, a pizza store. Or something quick, like a TV dinner.” 37 yo, obese, multiparous: “I don't have a lot of energy. I'm used to, you know, working, cleaning. Even before pregnancy, like cleaning around the house. It's like I can't do nothing now… I can't stand for long. I don't like to cook no more. Nothing.” 26 yo, obese, multiparous: “After I eat, I'll just be tired… Before I got pregnant, I never was tired after I ate, I'd just go outside and run around, but it's like the baby's like, ‘okay, I'm going to sleep’, so I should just rest.”
8. Misunderstanding about what defines “healthy”	22 yo, overweight, nulliparous: “I actually was mad because I bought Juicy Juice, and that's baby juice, and somebody decided to drink it. And I didn't want to make a big scene about it because we all pitch in. It's like, ‘why my Juicy Juice? Out of everything?’ I will be like that for the healthy foods.” 26 yo, overweight, multiparous: “I used to drink a lot of soda, but I cut that back a while ago. And now the soda I drink is ginger ale. There's an added benefit, ‘Cause it’s ginger ale. And cola's just sugar.” 27 yo, overweight, multiparous: (Favorite snack-potato chips dipped in cream cheese) “Do I think it's healthy? Yeah, ‘cause I don’t get sick with it. I think its light and it don't have that much fat in it.”
9. Mothers don't want to deprive their babies	25 yo, overweight, nulliparous: “Sometimes I wanna eat one plate. Sometimes I wanna eat more than one…I can't control it, it comes from the baby.” 27 yo, overweight, multiparous: “I'm not gonna starve my baby ‘cause that’s just selfish.” 20 yo, obese, nulliparous: “I would crave for something, but it's not only me craving for it. The baby craves for it, too. So the baby wants fried chicken, I'm like, ‘oh well’. I can't turn the fried chicken down, because if I eat something healthy, I might throw it up because the baby don't like it.”
10. Family and friends pressure mothers to eat	25 yo overweight, multiparous: “Sometimes if I don't have an appetite, he's (husband) like, ‘just eat something’.” 22 yo, overweight, nulliparous: “She (mom) gave me the portion. I was like, ‘whoa, this is a lot’. She was like, ‘oh, you're eating for two! It's not that much’.” 37 yo, obese, multiparous: “My boyfriend tell me, ‘eat, eat, eat’. He always cooking or bringing me food… I never say, no.”

^ayear-old