Understanding the Dietary Habits of Black Men With Diabetes

Diabetes is highly prevalent in black men. To provide nurse practitioners with practice strategies, we explored black men’s perceived needs for dietary health and diabetes self-management using the social cognitive theory. Twenty-five black men participated in 4 focus groups. The data were analyzed using a combination of inductive/deductive content analysis approach. Focus group analysis identified personal, behavioral, and environmental barriers to and facilitators for diabetes self-management. Nurse practitioners may need to provide extra emotional support in the absence of informal social support from families for diabetes self-management and dietary health in black men with diabetes. •Diabetes is more prevalent in men compared with women.•Most diabetes care is provided in outpatient settings.•Nurse practitioners are needed to provide high-quality diabetes care.•Social cognitive theory can be used to promote healthy eating practices.