Investigating Access to Affordable Healthy Foods Among Rural Low-Income Children in Maine

The goal of this study is to examine how food environments influence rural childhood obesity rates and food choices, in order to ultimately help policymakers find effective rural policy interventions. Specifically, this research will investigate the community-based healthy food environment (defined as food access, cost and quality for healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables, More

Identifying and Evaluating Food Environment Changes Improving Access to Affordable Healthy Foods in Low-Income Communities

The goal of this research is to evaluate the Fresh to You (FTY) program, which aims to increase year-round access to affordable, high-quality, fresh fruits and vegetables for low-income families through implementation of year-round discount fruit and vegetable markets in community organizations. Specifically, this work will consist of (a) conducting process evaluations of FTY in More

Evaluating Nutrition Policies and Practices in U.S. Secondary Schools

This aim of this work is to evaluate disparities in school-level nutrition policies and practices across the U.S. More specifically, the objective of this research is to (a) determine the prevalence of school-level nutrition policies and practices in a large sample of schools across multiple states stratified by school-level socioeconomic status, geographic location, and racial/ethnic More

Examining Higher and Lower Income Household Food Purchasing Behavior and Whether It May Be Responsible for Childhood Obesity

This project will examine the extent to which household food purchasing behavior differs between higher- and lower-income households and whether these differences may be partly responsible for socioeconomic differences in childhood obesity. In addition, investigators will use econometric models of household food purchases to simulate the extent to which pricing policies, such as taxes on More

Examining Policy and Practice in Digital Marketing of Food and Beverages to Children

The aim of this research is to examine new digital and interactive food and beverage marketing practices, primarily targeting children and adolescents. Specifically, this study will: (a) provide a comprehensive analysis of the digital food and beverage youth marketing infrastructure, explaining new platforms, technologies, advertising techniques, and market research practices for targeting children and adolescents, More

Evaluating Two Meal Service Strategies for Moderating Energy Intake of Preschool-Aged Children

This research will evaluate the influence of two low-cost approaches to serving meals in child care programs on children’s dietary intake. Specifically, a randomized crossover design experiment will be conducted to examine whether serving fruits and non-starchy vegetables in advance of other menu items at lunch may increase children’s fruit and vegetable consumption and moderate More

Examining the Financial Impact of a la Carte Foods in Kansas Public Schools

This project will characterize demographic and financial differences in the dependence on a la carte food sales among school food service programs. Specifically, the aims of this research are to: (a) classify and describe school districts according to their level of a la carte dependence, (b) explore key financial and demographic characteristics that distinguish low, More