Research & Publications | Healthy Eating Research

Focus Areas

Resource Types

Age Groups

Race/Ethnicity

Policy Opportunities and Legal Considerations to Reform SNAP-Authorized Food Retail Environments

Research was conducted using Lexis+ to evaluate statutes, regulations, and case law to determine the legal feasibility of requiring retail-based SNAP signage and nutrition disclosures, healthy endcaps and checkout aisles, and tying advertising restrictions to the licensing of SNAP retailers. Requiring retailers that designate certain foods or locations as SNAP-eligible to consistently do so in More

Date: March 2023

Resource Type: Journal Article

Focus Areas: Food Retail Nutrition Policy & Programs

Reducing Student Exposure to Digital Food and Beverage Marketing: Policy and Practice Recommendations

Digital marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to children and adolescents is pervasive, highly effective, undermines healthy eating, and contributes to health inequities. Expanded use of electronic devices and remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the urgency for policy interventions to limit digital food marketing in schools and on school-issued devices. The US More

Keywords: Digital marketing

Date: March 2023

Resource Type: Journal Article

Focus Areas: Food Marketing School & After School

Which Healthy Food Promotion Strategies Within Grocery Retail Settings Are Most Promising?

This review identifies intervention strategies implemented within U.S. grocery retail stores that are effective in improving the healthfulness of shoppers’ food and beverage purchasing and consumption. Results from our review demonstrate that nutritional scoring and nutritional messaging were the most rigorously tested and effective interventions. Additionally, simple interventions yield the most successful results and minimize More

Date: December 2022

Resource Type: Research Brief

Focus Areas: Food Retail

Encouraging Healthier Food and Beverage Purchasing and Consumption: A Review of Interventions within Grocery Retail Settings

This review identifies the most promising intervention strategies for promoting the purchase and consumption of healthier items within U.S. grocery retail settings, with a particular focus on those strategies that may be most effective when implemented within SNAP-authorized retail settings. Searches of nine electronic databases, as well as forward and backward searches, yielded 1942 studies. More

Date: December 2022

Resource Type: Journal Article

Focus Areas: Food Retail

Reducing Student Exposure to Digital Food and Beverage Marketing

Digital marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to children and adolescents is pervasive and undermines healthy eating. During the COVID-19 pandemic, students’ time spent online for both recreation and school using educational technology doubled from 3.8 to 7.7 hours per day for 12- to13-year-olds, and racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities widened with children of color More

Keywords: Digital marketing

Date: July 2022

Resource Type: Report

Focus Areas: Food Marketing School & After School

SNAP Purchasing Power and Food Insecurity During the Pandemic

Food price inflation is an adverse outcome of COVID-19 that makes nutrition security more difficult for low-income families with children. School closures and pandemic-related assistance programs placed additional strains on the retail food system, which may have further amplified inflationary pressure on the cost of foods needed to support a healthy diet. The goal of More

Keywords: COVID-19, Supermarket

Date: July 2022

Resource Type: Grant Summary

Focus Areas: Nutrition Policy & Programs Pricing & Economics

Sweetened beverage taxes: Economic benefits and costs according to household income

Taxing sweetened beverages has emerged as an important and effective policy for addressing their overconsumption. However, taxes may place a greater economic burden on people with lower incomes. We assess the degree to which sweetened beverage taxes in three large U.S. cities placed an inequitable burden on populations with lower incomes by assessing spending on More

Date: July 2022

Resource Type: Journal Article

Focus Areas: Beverages Pricing & Economics

Dynamics of macroeconomic factor effects on food assistance program participation in the United States

Macroeconomic factors relating to economic, financial, and sociological stress are identified and their impacts assessed concerning participation in key food assistance programs (SNAP, WIC, and NSLP). The econometric analysis covers the period October 1999 to September 2020. The impact of COVID-19 on participation in these programs also is quantified. Based on the parameter estimates obtained More

Date: June 2022

Resource Type: Journal Article

Focus Areas: Nutrition Policy & Programs Pricing & Economics

A click too far from fresh foods: A mixed methods comparison of online and in-store grocery behaviors among low-income households

A recent policy in the U.S. authorized monthly benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to be used online to increase grocery access and promote healthy eating. This study examined online grocery attitudes and purchasing behaviors among low-income SNAP-eligible households with young children with and without online grocery experience. An explanatory sequential mixed methods More

Date: April 2022

Resource Type: Journal Article

Focus Areas: Food Retail Nutrition Policy & Programs

Food Marketing Practices of Major Online Grocery Retailers in the United States, 2019-2020

Food marketing influences consumers’ preferences for and selection of marketed products. Although a substantial body of research has described food-marketing practices in brick-and-mortar stores, no research has examined food marketing in online grocery retail despite its growing importance as a source of food-at-home purchases. This study aimed to develop and apply a coding instrument to More

Date: April 2022

Resource Type: Journal Article

Focus Areas: Food Marketing Food Retail