State: National

Relative Contribution of Energy Intake and Energy Expenditure to Childhood Obesity: A Review of the Literature and Directions for Future Research

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Understanding the relative importance of overconsumption and physical inactivity to excess weight gain among children and adolescents can contribute to the development and evaluation of interventions and policies to reduce childhood obesity. However, there has been debate on whether energy intake or energy expenditure is the dominant contributor to childhood obesity. This review article evaluated More

Impact of Targeted Beverage Taxes on Higher- and Lower-Income Households

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This article examines the health and financial impact of a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) on higher- and lower-income households. Using data from the 2006 Nielsen Homescan panel, researchers found that large taxes on SSBs have the potential to positively influence weight outcomes, especially for middle-income households. A 40 percent price increase would lead middle-income More

Taxing Soft Drinks and Restricting Access to Vending Machines to Curb Child Obesity

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This paper focused on the impact changes in soft drink taxes and policies restricting school vending machine access had on soda consumption among children and adolescents. The researchers used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) III (1988-1994) and IV (1999-2006) and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K). They concluded that More

Reaching Staff, Parents, and Community Partners to Prevent Childhood Obesity in Head Start, 2008

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This article describes obesity prevention activities directed at staff, parents and community partners in Head Start, the United States’ largest federally-funded early childhood education program. On the bases of survey data, researchers found that 60% of responding Head Start programs trained staff about feeding children, and 63% trained staff about children’s gross motor activity. Eighty-four More

Barriers to Obesity Prevention in Head Start

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This article details findings gleaned from a national survey of all directors of Head Start, a program that provides early childhood education to nearly one million lower-income children, approximately one third of whom are obese. With respect to implementing policies and practices to address obesity, program directors identified three key barriers: lack of time, money More

Planting the Seeds for Public Health: How the Farm Bill Can Help Farmers to Produce and Distribute Healthy Foods

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Resulting from a detailed legal analysis of the 2008 Farm Bill, this report finds that lack of information about yields and prices for fruits and vegetables has undermined farmers’ ability to make them more widely available and accessible. The report highlights the barriers the agriculture community faces in providing access to healthy foods, and provides More

Program Practices: An Investigation of Physical Activity and Healthy Eating Standards and Practices on Out-of-School-Time Programs

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In the US, 6.5 million children attend out-of-school time (OST) programs annually, participating in roughly three hours per day of activities typically including homework, snack and gross motor play. The specific aims of this study are to: (1) build capacity for obesity prevention in OST by infusing rigorous science-based guidelines into the National Afterschool Association More

Can Soft Drink Taxes Reduce Population Weight?

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This paper evaluates the impact of changes in state soft drink taxes on body mass index (BMI), obesity and overweight. Researchers found that weight responds to changes in soft drink taxes; an increase of 1% in the state soft drink tax rate leads to a decrease in BMI of 0.003 points and the influence of More

Preventing Obesity in the Child Care Setting: Evaluating State Regulations

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This report evaluates states’ healthy eating and physical activity regulations for two types of child care facilities: child-care centers and child-care homes. To determine states’ performance, experts first compiled a list of top ten healthy eating and top ten physical activity regulations, then compared this list against existing child-care regulations for the 50 United States, More