Unsavory Choices: The High Sodium Density of U.S. Chain Restaurant Foods

Drawing from a larger study on restaurant nutrition, this cross-sectional study reports on the sodium density of 30,073 menu items from 237 unique U.S. chain restaurant brands in 2010. Sodium density, defined as mg sodium per 1000 kcal, was evaluated with descriptive statistics and stratified by restaurant characteristics (service model and cuisine), menu type (regular More

Assessment of a Government-Subsidized Supermarket in a High-Need Area on Household Food Availability and Children’s Dietary Intakes

The objective of this study was to assess the impact of a new government-subsidized supermarket in a high-need area on household food availability and dietary habits in children. In September 2011, a new supermarket was opened in the Morrisania community in the South Bronx, New York, with funding from New York City’s Food Retail Expansion More

Food Market Measures Toolkit: Assessment of Food Environment, Consumers, and Store Owners

The Food Market Measures Toolkit compiles, categorizes, and describes healthy food retail measures to assist researchers and public health practitioners in selecting the appropriate measurement tool for their work. While a majority of measures focus on store environment and availability of healthy food, this guide also includes measures of consumer and store-owner perspectives. In addition, More

Changes in Awareness and Use of Calorie Information After Mandatory Menu Labeling in Restaurants in King County, Washington

In 2009, King County, Wash., implemented a menu-labeling regulation that requires chain restaurants to provide calorie, saturated fat, carbohydrate, and sodium information. This study examines population-level changes in menu-labeling awareness (i.e., seeing calorie information) and use (i.e., using calorie information) before and after policy implementation in King County. Researchers analyzed 2008 through 2010 Behavioral Risk More

Reducing Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption by Providing Caloric Information: How Black Adolescents Alter Their Purchases and Whether the Effects Persist

This paper examines the ways in which adolescents altered the type and size of their purchases of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) in response to an intervention in six corner stores located in lower-income, predominately black neighborhoods in Baltimore, Maryland. Researchers used one of four randomly posted signs with caloric information about a 20 ounce SSB: 1) More

Moving from Policy to Implementation: A Methodology and Lessons Learned to Determine Eligibility for Healthy Food Financing Projects

Financing programs to incentivize healthy food retail development in communities classified as “underserved” are taking place at the local, state, and national levels. Implementing these policies requires a clear definition of eligibility for program applicants and policy administrators. This paper describes a process to implement an eligibility analysis for healthy food financing programs and shares More

Shopper Response to Front-of-Package Nutrition Labeling Programs: Potential Consumer and Retail Store Benefits

Many front-of-package (FOP) nutrition labeling systems have been developed by food retailers and manufactures to help consumers identify more healthful options at the point of purchase. This paper examines how two alternative FOP nutrition labeling systems – reductive and evaluative – affect shoppers’ product evaluations, choices, and retailer evaluations. Reductive FOP systems extract a reduced More

Lessons Learned from Small Store Programs to Increase Healthy Food Access

This paper presents the experiences and lessons learned from small food store interventions in four U.S. cities – Baltimore, Md.; Minneapolis, Minn.; Burlington, N.C.; and Philadelphia, Pa. Experiences from these four communities indicate that small store interventions face a variety of challenges that impact feasibility, acceptability, and long-term success. Particularly challenging issues included: understanding and More

Assessing the Relative Impact of Home-Food and Local-Supermarket Environments on Children’s Diets in Low-Resource African American Neighborhoods

This study will take advantage of a unique natural experiment to evaluate the ways in which the home food environment modifies the effects of a new full-service supermarket on children’s diet in a low-resource, urban, African American neighborhood. The study has two specific aims: 1) to determine the effect of the new supermarket on children’s More