State: National

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

A National Survey of Obesity Prevention Practices in Head Start

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This article summarizes obesity prevention practices and environments within Head Start, the United States’ largest federally-funded early childhood education program. On the basis of survey data, researchers found that most Head Start programs report doing more to support healthy eating and gross motor activity than required by federal performance standards in these areas.

Planning for Food Access: A National Scan and Evaluation of Local Comprehensive Planning and Zoning

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Low-income, underserved communities are often plagued with unhealthy food environments. A community’s comprehensive plan directly influences urban design and land-use regulations, which affect neighborhood food availability. While some local governments are including food access goals and policies in their local plans, little is understood about the quality, specificity and comprehensiveness of these goals and policies. More

Studying the Effect of Beverage Taxes on Children’s Energy Intake and Tax Revenue

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Health advocates have increasingly argued for taxes on calorically sweetened beverages. However, there is little empirical research that evaluates the public health and fiscal impacts of such taxes while simultaneously accounting for consumers’ and suppliers’ likely changes in economic behavior in response to a targeted tax. The aim of this study is to use econometric More

Examining How Increases in Earned Income Tax Credits, Food Prices and Neighborhood Context Affect Children’s BMI

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The goal of this project is to examine how increases in family income generated by geographic- and time-varying changes in earned income tax credits (EITC) impact children’s body mass index, and how this effect may depend on their neighborhood food environment and regional food prices. Focusing on EITC-generated income changes amounts to a quasi-experimental research More

Schools and Obesity Prevention: Creating School Environments and Policies to Promote Healthy Eating and Physical Activity

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Schools have an unparalleled opportunity to promote children’s health by creating an environment in which children eat healthy foods, engage in regular physical activity, and learn life-long skills for healthy eating and active living. In this article, authors discuss the role of schools in obesity prevention efforts, current issues in schools’ food and physical activity More

Obesity Metaphors: How Beliefs About the Causes of Obesity Affect Support for Public Policy

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Using the Yale Rudd Center Public Opinion on Obesity Survey, this study examines how individuals’ demographic/health characteristics, political attitudes and beliefs about the causes of obesity affect their support for obesity-reduction policies. Included in the study were seven obesity metaphors; how much respondents’ agreed with or used these metaphors was strongly predictive of whether they More