Table 5.

Somali (S), Latino (L) and Hmong (H) parents’ programmatic suggestions, the Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA, September 2011 through August 2012

Themes	Summary/sub-themes	Parent quotes
Programmatic Ideas for healthy eating	Understanding which American foods are healthy/unhealthy; shopping for healthy foods on a budget; programmes that are free and are easy to get to	S1: ‘We would like healthy food that we can cook at home. Rice, vegetables, pasta – the healthy foods that we were feeding them at home – That the food be healthy and not like the junk food we talked about … Secondly, it has to be things that are permitted in our religion we will take part in it.’ S2: ‘[W]e want a place that will teach us more than what we know – if there is food that is healthier than the ones that we cook and we will be taught and it will be offered at the place – we need that.’ S3: ‘Some people don’t have vehicles but if we are provided transportation then nothing is preventing us, we will go because it is valuable.’ L1: ‘How to cook on a budget, and quick.’ L2: ‘Learn how to cook healthy meals.’ H: ‘I want to actually see what a healthy meal looks like; one that will not make you fat.’ AND ‘[H]ow many meals, how many plates do you eat? Do you eat differently? Do you want each meal to have something different or eat the same thing because us Hmong, we usually eat rice, meat and vegetable.’
Programmatic ideas for physical activity	A convenient exercise place that caters to the entire family or gender-specific; indoors; free of charge	S1: ‘We would like for the centre to have a place exclusive for women only, a section exclusive for children, a place exclusive for men; in my opinion that is something that I would like.’ S2: ‘Whether it be the exercising, the stories from our country, you know many cultural things that were practised in our country that our children can learn – that this place have that so that the children can get an idea of how their parent and grandparents lived – that the place be staffed by people like that that have the experience and whom we can take our children. We would love that.’ L: ‘I have never seen a programme like that, right? Where everyone participates together, like a family? Or with other families? In activities like that … doing exercise.’ H: ‘[I]f there is a free house for exercise, right, we would bring the kids to go exercise in there. But living in this country, the buildings for exercise, you must pay. There isn’t one thing like say at a library, so that you can bring your kids to go exercise. So that you don’t have to pay money. It must be free so that you can bring your kids to go exercise.’