Making progress in the area of food insecurity & nutrition environments

Sep 27, 2021

NIH Virtual Workshop banner

On Tuesday, September 21, 2021, UPenn PRC director, Karen Glanz, PhD, MPH, co-chaired an NIH (trans-NIH) workshop called Food Insecurity, Neighborhood Food Environment, and Nutrition Health Disparities: State of the Science.  It was presented virtually for three days, and had over 3,500 registered participants. There were nine sessions, including lively panel discussions. These discussions gave the speakers an opportunity to address attendees’ questions.

Angela Odoms-Young, PhD, also co-chaired the event. Dr. Odoms-Young is an Associate Professor, in the Division of Nutritional Sciences, College of Human Ecology/College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, at Cornell University.

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All live content is available for viewing until September 2022

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Angela Odoms-Young, PhD and Karen Glanz, PhD, MPH, co-chairs and moderators of the workshop.

Overview

Participants viewed three days of presentations and panel discussions. On Day 3, Dr. Glanz shared key takeaways with the following observations.

 

First, “health equity is defined as the absence of unfair and avoidable or remediable differences in health among population groups defined socially, economically, demographically or geographically.”

Health equity means increasing opportunities for everyone to live the healthiest life possible, no matter who we are, where we live, or how much money we make. (RWJF)

In addition, relationships between walkability & activity inequality hold within cities in the USA of similar income, meaning, walkable environments lead to lower activity inequality.

Dr. Glanz believes that to make significant progress in the area of food insecurity & nutrition environments we need the following:

  • Innovation & flexibility
  • Collaboration & coordination
  • Balance internal & external validity
  • Address supply AND demand
  • Study individual & aggregate effects
  • Always think about people in need

 

Lastly, increasing the fluidity between research, policy and practice at the Federal level, such as the NIH, USDA, CDC, and other agencies. State and local levels can address nutrition, health, housing, safety, and economic development.

 

We can create equity by incentivizing collaboration, not competition, such as the Gates Foundation global initiatives.

In Conclusion

Dr. Glanz closed her summary with two encouraging quotes.

 

…Science and technology are powerful tools, but we must decide how best to use them. Perhaps the most important point is to ensure that science never becomes divorced from the basic human feeling of empathy with our fellow beings.

Dalai Lama

The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality (2006)

Work hard,
Work smart,
And always have fun

 

Matt Wilpers

Peloton

You can see an agenda of the event here. Attendee and presenter comments, including highlights from the presentations can be seen by clicking the #NIHNutrtionEquity hashtag in Twitter. The video captured of the 3-day event will be available on October 7, 2021.

 

Healthy Weigh Study Results

Sep 7, 2021

What strategy works better for weight loss in overweight employees?

  • Financial incentives
  • Environment change strategies
  • A combination of the two,
  • On-your-own weight-loss efforts

 

Drs. Karen Glanz and Kevin Volpp, along with the team at the UPenn PRC, found that participants in all groups lost weight. Incidentally, the financial incentives group lost slightly more weight, but none of the strategies netted significantly greater weight losses than the others. The results from their Healthy Weigh Study are currently published in the September 2021 edition of JAMA Network Open.

 

In 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Prevention Research Center (UPenn PRC) conducted a study to test strategies to achieve weight loss and maintain weight loss in urban worksites in Philadelphia.

First, researchers collected data on participants who earned daily financial rewards, in addition to those guided on positive changes to their environment.

Second, they compared each strategy, separately and together, to see which one helped the participants achieve weight-loss.

Third, the team compared that data to those who tried to lose weight on their own.

Ultimately, the goal of the study was to manage obesity by improving nutrition and physical activity, in order to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and other chronic health conditions.

 

 

 

 

JAMA Healthy Weigh_visual

Publication

Glanz K, Shaw P, Kwong P, Choi J, Chung A, Zhu J, Huang Q, Hoffer K, Volpp K. Effect of Financial Incentives and Environmental Strategies on Weight Loss in The Healthy Weigh Study: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Network Open 2021;4(9): e2124132. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.24132

Read more

Article by Glanz and her team receives honor from major nutrition journal

Feb 18, 2019

Karen Glanz, PhD, MPH

UPenn PRC Director Karen Glanz, MPH, PhD and her co-authors received the 2019 High-Impact Award from the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior (JNEB) for a highly cited paper published in 2016. The publication focuses on synthesizing the evidence about how researchers measure the presence of healthful food and beverage options are in food stores – an issue of growing public interest in efforts to promote healthy eating.

Read the paper here.

 

 

Glanz K., Johnson L., Yaroch A.L., Phillips M., Ayala G.X., Davis E.L.
Measures of Retail Food Store Environments and Sales: Review and Implications for Healthy Eating Initiatives J Nutr Educ Behav 2016; 48(3)

Linking a Child’s Environment to Obesity

Sep 4, 2018

The Issue

There is a global childhood obesity epidemic and researchers in the United States are working toward solutions, including prevention. Compared to adults, there has been relatively little research linking a child’s environment to their weight. This report was published in The Obesity Journal on August 23,2018. It is a continuation of findings from the Neighborhood Impact on Kids (NIK) study, and focuses on both physical activity and nutrition environments. Two factors that can affect a child’s weight, in addition to behavioral factors, like daily energy intake and sedentary behavior.

The Study

A team of researchers gathered data twice over a two year span, in four types of different metropolitan neighborhoods in two large cities. They looked at several factors, like the age of the parents and the proximity of a quality park, then compared these data for each child to the child’s BMI. A favorable neighborhood in the study had a supermarket nearby with good nutrition and a quality park within walking distance of the child’s home. Less favorable neighborhoods had fast food easily accessible, no supermarkets nearby and nowhere for the children to play within a 1/2 mile. The findings looked at whether the neighborhood characteristics predicted the children outcomes going forward over the two years of the study.

As a result, the study showed that children living in less favorable neighborhoods were 41% to 49% more likely to be overweight, and that these effects were found across two years. City planners and developers can use this evidence when designing neighborhoods that support healthy families.

The Importance of Environments

Karen Glanz, PhD, MPH, a co-author on the study, noted “This study is unique and important in that it allowed us to make clear comparisons between ‘healthier’ and ‘less healthy’ food and activity environments over multiple years. The findings underscore how important environments can be in shaping behaviors and the health of children.”

Neighborhoods Impact on Kids (NIK) is an observational study, evaluating cross-sectional and longitudinal associations of neighborhood-level activity and nutrition environments with children’s weight status and obesity. The study is led by Dr. Brian Saelens, currently at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

View the article

Evaluating Healthy Vending Policies for Youth in Four Cities – Report Now Available

Jul 30, 2018

Best Practices

Karen Glanz, PhD, MPH and her team recently conducted an evaluation of healthy vending policies and initiatives affecting youth in four cities.

  • Chicago Parks District in Chicago, Illinois
  • Mecklenburg County, North Carolina
  • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • Springdale, Arkansas.

Vending machines are a common source for low nutrient, energy-dense snacks and beverages. Consequently, youth can easily access vending machines at many public spaces such as parks, recreation centers, and swimming pools. Increasing the availability of healthier options in vending machines is one way to influence healthier snacking behaviors. Furthermore, it is aligned with the CDC recommendation for communities to make healthier food and beverage options more readily available in public venues.

Many cities are beginning to adopt healthy vending policies in public areas, but more could be done to develop, implement, and evaluate these healthy vending polices is limited.

 

The Design

This study used a mixed-methods, multiple-case study design and included semi-structured interviews with multiple stakeholders from each city. The site visits at each city included surveys with adults using the vending machines and observations of the available products in vending machines. In addition to a review of documents, including nutrition standards, policies, requests for proposals (RFPs), vending contracts, sales data, and any existing evaluation tools were collected from each site.

The research findings are summarized in this report. It describes the major similarities and differences across four cites/counties who chose healthy vending practices. The report emphasizes what works and what doesn’t when developing, executing, and evaluating healthy vending policies and initiatives.


This research was supported by Healthy Eating Research, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

 Evaluating Healthy Vending Policies for Youth in Four Cities

Karen Glanz, PhD, MPH; Julie Bromberg, MHS; Yasaman Mirafzali; Sarah Green, MPH

Download the full report

Coming in April!!! PRC Symposium: Accelerating Policies & Research on Food Access, Diet, and Obesity Prevention

Mar 21, 2017

 

On Friday, April 28th, the University of Pennsylvania Prevention Research Center is hosting a symposium: “Accelerating Policies & Research on Food Access, Diet, and Obesity Prevention.” This one-day interdisciplinary event highlights the most current research on food access, diet, and obesity.  Distinguished scholars and leaders in the fields of public health and nutrition will focus on bridging the gap between research and practice. For more information and to register, go to:  https://upennprcsymposium.splashthat.com/

 

Student Alert !!!

Join us on Thursday, April 27th from 4:00-6:00 pm for a public health student pitch competition.  Students may display a poster or use 5 minutes to teach something they are passionate about in the fields of public health and prevention research, nutrition or health policy. For more information about the Thursday pitch competition or about student scholarships to the Friday symposium, contact Victoria Worthen at vworthen@upenn.edu .

 

Healthy Foods Take a Back Seat to Junk Food When It Comes to Marketing: PRC Director Karen Glanz on Knowledge@Wharton

Dec 19, 2016

UPenn PRC Director Karen Glanz, PhD, MPH, was interviewed with Penn Professor Jason Riis by Dan Loney on Knowledge@Wharton about how major brand marketing favors junk food over healthy food options in the consumer marketplace.  “Food production companies are in the business of making profit, not making healthier food,” Glanz noted, adding that short-term corporate expectations based on quarterly earnings hinder a long-term strategy to build consumer relationships with healthier food choices.

“Do they market healthy foods as heavily as unhealthy foods? Do healthy foods get the same bells and whistles and kid-friendly appeals as the bad stuff?” Glanz questioned, adding that the build-up of consumer dependence on salt, sugar, and fat has taken place over many years, a result of research and marketing that targets those taste cravings in consumers.

Glanz observed there has been more success in the promotion of low and zero calorie drinks and bottled water. “The beverage market is interesting and has a different trajectory than the food and snack market,” says Glanz. “Calorie-free drinks are well-established.  They sell less but sell well.”

Glanz also gave a nod to former First Lady Michelle Obama’s healthy eating and Let’s Move initiatives. “The First Lady’s signature programs have been a catalyst for promoting health. They’re two sides of the same issue.”