Research & Publications | Healthy Eating Research

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COVID-19 relief measures and food insecurity among low-wage worker families

During the COVID-19 pandemic, record numbers of households, including nearly 14 million children, reported not having enough to eat. In response, the federal government enacted a set of far-reaching relief measures, expanding both USDA nutrition assistance programs as well as other economic safety net measures. Within a sample of low-wage workers with children, this research More

Additional Fruit and Vegetable Vouchers for Pregnant WIC Clients: An Equity-Focused Strategy to Improve Food Security and Diet Quality

Women with low household income and from racial/ethnic minority groups are at elevated risk of food insecurity. Food insecurity during pregnancy is associated with overall less healthy diets, lower intake of the pregnancy-supportive nutrients iron and folate, and significant variations in diet across the course of a month. The goal of this study was to More

Date: June 2022

Resource Type: Journal Article

Focus Areas: Diet Quality & Healthy Weight Nutrition Policy & Programs

Food Insecurity and Childhood Obesity: A Systematic Review

Addressing food insecurity while promoting healthy body weights among children is a major public health challenge. Our objective is to examine longitudinal associations between food insecurity and obesity in U.S. children aged 1 to 19 years. Sources for this research include PubMed, CINAHL, and Scopus databases (January 2000 to February 2022). We included English language More

Keywords: Food insecurity

Date: June 2022

Resource Type: Journal Article

Focus Areas: Diet Quality & Healthy Weight Food Access

Nutrition standards for the charitable food system: challenges and opportunities

Food insecurity is associated with increased risk of chronic disease and poor dietary intake. The United States charitable food system, a complex network of food banks, pantries and congregate meal sites, provides food for millions of low-income households each year. Food banks and pantries play a critical role in supporting food security and are an More

Date: March 2022

Resource Type: Journal Article

Focus Areas: Diet Quality & Healthy Weight Food Access

Nutrient Warnings: Summary of the Scientific Literature and Policy Recommendations

Nutrient warnings, including warnings on packaged foods and restaurant menus, can be used to show when a food or drink has high levels of calories or unhealthful nutrients like sodium, saturated fat, and added sugars. As of December 2021, calorie and nutrient warnings (including for sodium, saturated fat, and sugar) are required on packaged food More

Date: December 2021

Resource Type: Fact Sheet

Focus Areas: Diet Quality & Healthy Weight Food Retail

Evidence-Based Recommendations and Best Practices for Promoting Healthy Eating Behaviors in Children 2 to 8 Years

Dietary recommendations are available about what to feed children ages 2 to 8 for optimal health, but relatively little guidance exists about how to feed those children. Because of the discrepancy between young children’s recommended and actual dietary intakes, there is a clear need for such guidance. To address this gap, Healthy Eating Research convened More

Date: October 2021

Resource Type: Expert Panel Report

Focus Areas: Diet Quality & Healthy Weight Early Childhood

Assessing the Public Health Impacts of the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative

The Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) is a voluntary industry initiative in which companies commit to featuring only foods meeting specific nutrition criteria in advertising directed primarily to children under age 12. New criteria that were announced in 2018 and went into effect in 2020 strengthened the nutrition standards and changed the criteria More

Date: October 2021

Resource Type: Report

Focus Areas: Diet Quality & Healthy Weight Food Marketing

Caregiver Feeding Practices as Predictors for Child Dietary Intake in Low-Income, Appalachian Communities

The Appalachian region of the U.S. is disproportionately impacted by poverty, obesity, and nutrition-related chronic diseases. Evidence suggests that caregiver feeding practices may promote healthful eating behaviors among children; however, this has not been examined in low-income, rural, Appalachian populations. This study examines caregiver feeding practices as predictors for child diet in low-income Appalachian families, More

Date: August 2021

Resource Type: Journal Article

Focus Areas: Diet Quality & Healthy Weight Early Childhood

A Scoping Review of the Use of Indigenous Food Sovereignty Principles for Intervention and Future Directions

Indigenous food sovereignty (IFS) represents a community-led movement with potential to reduce health inequities, but no scoping review of the impact of taking an IFS approach on intervention research has been conducted. This review sought to: 1) describe intervention studies that employ IFS principles, and 2) describe the impact of studies using IFS principles on More

Date: July 2021

Resource Type: Journal Article

Focus Areas: Diet Quality & Healthy Weight Healthy Communities

Validating a Nutrition Ranking System for Food Pantries Using the Healthy Eating Index-2015

The overall goal of this study is to develop a Healthy Charitable Foods Index that can be used by food banks to translate the pounds by category values into a value that corresponds meaningfully to the USDA’s Healthy Eating Index (HEI) scores. The subrecipient will compare a set of foods in the charitable food system More