Impact of San Francisco’s Toy Ordinance on Restaurants and Children’s Food Purchases, 2011-2012

In December 2011, San Francisco enacted the first citywide ordinance–the Healthy Food Incentives Ordinance– prohibiting restaurants in the city from giving away free toys or other incentives with children’s meals or with foods and beverages not meeting minimal nutritional criteria. This paper examines the impact of the ordinance on restaurant response (e.g., toy-distribution practices, changes More

Tapping Into Water: Key Considerations for Achieving Excellence in School Drinking Water Access

This paper examines free drinking water access in California public schools. Researchers conducted cross-sectional interviews with administrators from 240 California schools from May to November 2011 to examine the proportion of schools that met excellent water access criteria (i.e., location, density, type, maintenance, and appeal of water sources), school level characteristics associated with excellent water More

Impact of a Rewards-Based Incentive Program on Promoting Fruit and Vegetable Purchases

This paper examines the impact of a rewards-based incentive program on fruits and vegetable purchases in a supermarket located in a predominately minority community in Philadelphia, Pa. Researchers conducted a four-phase prospective cohort study with randomized intervention and wait-listed control groups. Households in the intervention were provided a 50 percent rebate on fresh or frozen More

Assessing the Impact of Food Restrictions Under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on Food Choices by Children and Families

Some public health advocates and policymakers are proposing restrictions on the types of foods eligible for purchase with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, such as sugary drinks and food products with minimal nutritional value. To date, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has rejected all such proposals due to lack of research on whether More

Children’s School-Related Food and Physical Activity Behaviors are Associated with Body Mass Index

This paper examines the associations between the food and physical activity environment in schools and body mass index (BMI) for lower-income boys and girls when they were in the 8th grade during 2007. Analyzing secondary data from the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K), researchers found that a number of More