Nutrition
Calorie Labeling and Product Reformulation: A Longitudinal Analysis of Supermarket-Prepared Foods
The 2010 Affordable Care Act required chain retail food establishments, including supermarkets, to post calorie information for prepared (i.e., ready to eat) foods. Implementation of calorie labeling could spur companies to reduce the calorie content of prepared foods, but few studies have explored this. This study evaluates the changes in the calorie content of prepared foods at 2 large U.S. supermarket chains after they implemented calorie labels in April 2017.New Strategies to Prioritize Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity Interventions
Interventions for obesity have not often been based on considerations that could predict their effectiveness. However, advances in research provide several new approaches that can inform priorities for public health interventions directed at nutrition, physical activity, and obesity. These approaches include estimation of the effect size, comparison of the calorie gap with the caloric deficit induced by the intervention, population reach and impact, cost and cost effectiveness of the intervention, time required to evaluate the effect of the intervention on weight change, and feasibility of the intervention.The Caloric Calculator: Average Caloric Impact of Childhood Obesity Interventions
The childhood obesity epidemic reflects the daily accumulation of an “energy gap”—excess calories consumed over calories expended. Population-level interventions to reverse the epidemic can be assessed by the degree to which they increase energy expenditure and/or reduce caloric intake. However, no common metric exists for such comparative assessment.Building Infrastructure to Document the U.S. Food Stream
As obesity has grown in both prevalence and severity in the U.S., there have been increasing calls for both regulatory and voluntary approaches to alter the nation's food supply so it becomes easier for both children and adults to “make the healthy choice.”1 As pointed out in the article by Slining et al.2 in this issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the 16 companies participating in the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation (HWCF) have pledged to remove 1.5 trillion calories from the marketplace by 2015.Increasing Water Availability During Afterschool Snack: Evidence, Strategies, and Partnerships from a Group Randomized Trial
Providing drinking water to U.S. children during school meals is a recommended health promotion strategy and part of national nutrition policy. Urban school systems have struggled with providing drinking water to children, and little is known about how to ensure that water is served, particularly in afterschool settings.Getting Back on Tap: The Policy Context and Cost of Ensuring Access to Low-Cost Drinking Water in Massachusetts Schools
Adequate water intake may have important health benefits for schoolchildren. Layers of federal, state, and local policy are relevant to provision of water within schools. Recently passed state and federal laws require free drinking-water access for students during mealtimes.Nutrition Policy Research That Can Lead to Reduced Childhood Obesity in the U.S.
One of the clear insights from obesity prevention research over the past few years is the potential for impactful, sustainable, and cost-effective policy change. This insight draws on lessons of the campaign to reduce tobacco use in the U.S. The tobacco campaigns clearly demonstrated the power of policy and regulatory change to promote healthier behavior. Although treatment and educational programs also have helped to reduce smoking, three key sets of policies drove down smoking rates in the U.S.: (1) the ban on advertising cigarettes on television; (2) the imposition of substantial taxes on tobacco; and (3) smoking restrictions in public spaces.
