Healthy Food Purchasing Among African American Youth: Associations with Child Gender, Adult Caregiver Characteristics and the Home Food Environment

This article discusses how the home food environment and caregiver and youth characteristics are associated with healthy food purchasing among lower-income African-American youth. Researchers found that intentions to eat healthier, caregivers’ attitude towards healthy eating and more frequent food preparation by family members were each significantly associated with higher frequency of purchasing healthy foods among More

Understanding the Rural Food Environment–Perspectives of Low-Income Parents

This article focuses on the food environment and food shopping habits of lower-income residents in rural Maine. Focus groups were conducted with lower-income parents of children enrolled in Medicaid/State Children’s Health Insurance Program in Maine to ask them about their food shopping habits, the barriers they faced when trying to obtain food, places where they More

Examining Rewards-Based Incentives for Fruit and Vegetable Purchases by Lower-Income Families

Incentives that reward healthier food purchases and that provide reinforcement to the consumer have not been systematically and rigorously studied, particularly among lower-income populations. The aim of this study is to determine whether an incentive-based system increases healthier food purchasing practices by lower-income families. The study is a randomized controlled trial of 70 adult supermarket More

Responses to the Changing WIC Package Among Small Food Store Retailers in the United States: A Mixed Methods Study

The Healthy Eating Research (HER) Corner Store working group, comprised of HER grantees conducting research in this topic area, undertook a research project that builds on existing projects in multiple communities around the United States. Each of the eight participating sites in seven states produced in-depth interviews with small store owners and managers. The interviews More

Healthy Food Availability in Small Urban Food Stores: A Comparison of Four U.S. Cities

This article assesses the availability of healthy foods in small food stores within four metropolitan areas: Baltimore, Maryland; Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota; Oakland, California; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Overall, availability of healthy foods within these small urban stores was limited. For nearly all food/beverage categories, scores regarding healthy food availability increased as store size increased.

Child Obesity: The Way Forward

Health Affairs published a special issue focusing on the childhood obesity epidemic and the local, state, and federal policy approaches that could have greatest impact for helping to reverse it. The March 2010 publication, which discusses findings from dozens of studies, includes articles from three Healthy Eating Research grantees: Claudia Probart, PhD, RD, Emma Sanchez-Vaznaugh, ScD, More