2024 was a year of many accomplishments for HER and our grantees. We are very proud to share a few highlights, from celebrating a lifetime impact award for HER’s director to releasing a new expert panel report.  We look forward to publishing new research and celebrating the successes of our grantee network in 2025. Happy New Year!

Mary Story Named Lifetime Impact Awardee

HER’s Director Dr. Mary Story was named as a 2024 President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition Lifetime Impact awardee. The PCFSN Lifetime Impact Award celebrates individuals whose careers have greatly contributed to the advancement or promotion of physical activity, fitness, sports, or nutrition nationwide. Dr. Story is a Professor in Global Health, and Family Medicine and Community Health at Duke University and has been Director of Healthy Eating Research since its inception in 2005. Please join us in congratulating Mary on this amazing accomplishment!

New Recommendations to Mitigate Harms from Digital Food Marketing to Children, ages 2-17

New recommendations from our latest expert panel, chaired by Jennifer Harris, PhD, MBA, were released October 2024. The recommendations focus on key actors affecting children’s digital environments, including industry-led policies, school-based policies, other physical food environment policies, social environment policies, and government policies. In addition to the full report, we developed an executive summary and a fact sheet for parents. Later this month (January 30) we have a webinar opportunity for researchers and advocacy partners to learn more about the panel findings, recommendations, and potential long-term policy opportunities. Learn more and register here.

New Grantees Begin their Research

In December, Healthy Eating Research announced the funding of 7 new research teams funded through our 2024 call for proposals. These studies focus on a range of policies and programs and their potential to improve nutrition and health among children and families, including WIC, CACFP, school meals, and food retail.

Work Group Highlights

We are excited to share the release of the HER NOPREN WIC Special Collection. The WIC Special Collection is a result of the strong NOPREN and Healthy Eating Research (HER) partnership. It includes five important WIC studies from 2023. The selected studies fill research gaps and present opportunities to inform policy and practice. To view the collections, please visit: https://nopren.ucsf.edu/nopren-special-collections.

In 2024, the HER NOPREN WIC Learning Collaborative awarded the third Research Impact Award to Christopher Anderson for his HER-supported publication titled, “Increased WIC cash value benefit is associated with greater amount and diversity of redeemed fruits and vegetables among participating households.” This award is intended to acknowledge, elevate, and disseminate peer-reviewed publications in the past calendar year that are generating or have the potential to generate a high impact on WIC policies, systems, or environment (PSE) changes or development and validity of research measures relevant to WIC.

Healthy Eating Research also launched our fourth cohort of the HER Early Stage Investigator Work Group in August 2024, led by Drs. Cody Neshteruk and Kelseanna Hollis-Hansen. Five participants received awards to conduct reviews on PSE strategies that promote nutrition equity and healthy eating among children and their families. Congratulations, Elder Varela, Luotao Lin, Sydney Pryor, Kristopher Nicholas, and Lilian Ademu!

Ultra-Processed Foods: State of the Science and Implications for Policy

In September, HER explored the controversial topic of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) by hosting a webinar with several national experts. Panelists provided an overview of the most common UPF classification system; delved into the potentially addictive nature of UPFs; and discussed the motivations and mechanisms for regulating foods based on their level of processing. This was HER’s most well-attended webinar in program history. You can view the recording, download the slides, and see suggested readings on the topic on our website.