Childhood obesity is a major public health problem in the U.S. among racial and ethnic minorities, including among the growing Latino population in the U.S. One promising but understudied policy for addressing childhood obesity is requiring health warnings on the front of sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) containers. Pictorial warnings in particular hold promise for overcoming language and literacy barriers. Our proposed project aims to design and evaluate pictorial health warnings on SSBs, with a long-term goal of informing policies that can improve diet, prevent obesity, and ultimately prevent type 2 diabetes and other cardiometabolic diseases among Latino children. The project will address three major gaps by developing pictorial health warnings on SSBs, focusing on Latino populations, and examining the impact of pictorial health warnings on SSB purchasing behavior in a real-world retail environment. Our study population includes Latino parents of children ages 2-12.
Developing and Evaluating the Effectiveness of Pictorial Health Warnings on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages to Overcome Language and Literacy Barriers
Related Research
March 2020
Toddler Drink Marketing: Opportunities to Address Harmful Practices
Toddler drinks are a relatively new product category, typically offered by infant formula manufacturers and promoted as beneficial for young children ages 12 months and older. Marketing promotes these drinks as the “next step” after infant formula, using claims that imply unproven benefits for children’s nutrition and health. However, these drinks … More
February 2020
Conducting a health-care-technology-based intervention to reduce sugary-beverage consumption for diverse populations of children
The healthcare sector is a promising venue for systems interventions to reduce children’s sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption, but clinical staff lack the time for high-intensity in-person interventions. We propose to develop and pilot a parent-informed, technology-enabled healthcare system-based intervention. The goals of the intervention are to: reduce SSB consumption, promote … More
February 2020
Expanding and evaluating a community-based intervention to increase healthy beverage consumption by Navajo preschool children
Diet-related disparities among indigenous youth are driven, in part, by excess sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and limited access to drinking water. Water is K’é targets environmental change at early childhood education (ECE) sites and community-wide systems change to promote a Diné culture of health. ECE sites will select and implement site-based … More