Building a National Research Agenda

Start Date: November 2025

Project Lead: Mary Story, PhD, RD, Megan Lott, MPH, RDN, and Lindsey Reed, MPH

See more related research

Share

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) commitment to child obesity ends in December 2025, marking the conclusion of a two-decade investment in Healthy Eating Research (HER). As part of our RWJF legacy, HER is developing a national research agenda for policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) interventions and strategies to promote food and nutrition security, optimal diet quality, and achieve healthy weights among U.S. children, adolescents, and families.

Four expert-led reviews are being conducted as part of this project, each focused on a critical life stage or system: 1) Early Childhood, 2) School-Age Children, 3) Family and Community Nutrition Supports, and 4) Shaping the Food Environment. The reviews are being conducted by expert writing teams, each producing a publishable paper.

  • Early Childhood: Kate Bauer, Allison Tovar
  • School-age Children: Juliana Cohen, Erin Hager
  • Family and Community Nutrition Supports: Cindy Leung, Julia Wolfson
  • Shaping the Food Environment: Christina Roberto, Alyssa Moran

An advisory board will provide strategic guidance and ensure scientific rigor and policy relevance throughout the project.

The resulting National Research Agenda will be a consensus-driven roadmap, informed by these literature reviews, as well as input from organizations and individuals working to shift policies, systems, and environments to support nutrition equity. Our hope is that this research agenda will be a critical tool for our nation — guiding researchers, policymakers, funders, and advocates toward the most promising solutions to improve child and family nutrition. By synthesizing evidence, identifying urgent gaps, and setting priorities, it will ensure resources flow to strategies with the greatest potential to improve child and family nutrition.

Read more about this project.

Age Groups: Adolescents (grades 9 to 12), Adults and Families, Elementary-age children (grades K to 5), Pregnant women, infants and toddlers (ages 0 to 2), Preschool-age children (ages 3 to 5), Young adolescents (grades 6 to 8)

Race/Ethnicity: African American or Black, American Indian, Asian, Latino(a) or Hispanic, Multi-racial/ethnic, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, White

Keywords: Body mass index (BMI), Diet quality/dietary assessment, Food insecurity, Healthy weight

Resource Type: Commissioned Research Project Summary

Focus Areas: Early Childhood, Food Access, Food Retail, Healthy Communities, Nutrition Policy & Programs, School & After School

States: National, Tribal Nation

Related Research

December 2025

From Policy to Plate: Implications of 2025 U.S. Federal Policy Changes on School Meals

School meals are a cornerstone of the United States’ nutrition safety net for children from low-income families, providing nearly 30 million lunches daily. However, recent U.S. policy actions may limit access to school meals for children who need them most. This commentary, published in the Nutrients Special Issue The Influence of School Meals on Children More

December 2025

Ultra-Processed Foods in School Meals: Challenges and Opportunities

Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are ubiquitous in the U.S. food supply, while growing evidence shows that UPFs harm children’s health. Schools offer a promising setting to introduce UPF regulation and reduce the availability of UPFs. This brief explores the issue of UPFs in school meals and identifies opportunities and challenges to replace UPFs with more fresh More

November 2025

The implications of banning synthetic food dyes on the food purchase quality of families with children

This study examines how removing synthetic dyes from the food supply impacts the nutritional quality of grocery purchases among families with children, focusing on the 7 dyes targeted by FDA for phase-out by the end of 2026 (some of which are required (i.e., red dye #3), while the removal of others are voluntary). Aim 1 More