State: California

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

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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.

‘Competitive’ Food and Beverage Policies: Are They Influencing Childhood Overweight Trends?

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This article explores whether new policies restricting ‘competitive’ foods and beverages in schools affected the increasing rates of overweight children in California. While the authors find that the rate of increase of overweight children did decrease significantly since the policies’ implementation, the extent to which the policies contributed to this rate of decrease in childhood More

Mobile Food Vending and the After-School Food Environment

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This article finds that mobile food vendors contribute to after-school snacking among children, and should be considered part of the school food environment. Based on data collected in Oakland, CA in the spring of 2008, researchers found a wide variety of vendors near schools. They include vendors who sell low-nutrient, calorie-dense items, such as ice More

Assessing Recommendations From a Study on Improving Nutrition in Licensed Child-Care Centers in California

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Approximately 50% of preschool-aged children in California are enrolled in licensed child-care settings, primarily in day care centers. These children consume a significant portion of their daily nutrition in child-care centers. Previous research has indicated that centers participating in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) served healthier foods than those not participating in More

Nutrition and Physical Activity Environments in Licensed Child Care: A Statewide Assessment of California

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This report summarizes the results of a survey assessing the nutrition and physical activity environments for 2- to 5-year old children in licensed child-care facilities in California, including child-care centers and homes, and state preschool and Head Start program sites. Researchers found that child-care sites that participated in the Child and Adult Care Food Program More

The Federal Child Nutrition Commodity Program: A Report on Nutritional Quality

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This report found that school districts fail to take advantage of healthier foods offered by the federal child nutrition commodity program, despite improvements in the nutritional quality of foods offered to schools by USDA. The study found that, in California, meat and cheese products accounted for more than 82% of the dollars spent on commodity More

Evaluating the Impact of Competitive Food and Beverage Policies on Body and Weight Patterns Among California Children and Adolescents

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Capitalizing on a natural experiment and existing data, this project will investigate the impact of competitive food and beverage policies on child and adolescent weight status. This work specifically includes the evaluation of the impact of competitive food and beverage policies adopted by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) on patterns in BMI and More