Lorrene Ritchie, director and cooperative extension specialist of the UC ANR Nutrition Policy Institute, was interviewed for a March 31, 2020 article in The New York Times, Don't Overdo the Coronavirus Stockpiling. The article discusses how to shop for food responsibly, without overstocking your pantry, and why you should only buy what you need. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends individuals and families stock up to two-weeks of food at home during the pandemic. “Presuming you get sick and all your family's going to be quarantined, then only that amount of food is what you need," said Dr. Ritchie in the article. This article was also featured in a UC ANR news article, Empty store shelves are not a sign of impending disaster.
Nutrition Policy Institute director and Cooperative Extension specialist, Lorrene Ritchie, was invited to give a talk on "Methodological challenges - self-report from key informants in diverse settings" as part of a national meeting hosted by the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR). The meeting took place in Atlanta, Ga. with Ritchie presenting on Thursday, February 27, 2020. Launched in 2009, NCCOR brings together four of the nation's leading research funders—the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)—to accelerate progress in reducing childhood obesity in America. NCCOR focuses on efforts that have the potential to benefit children, teens, and their families, and the communities in which they live.
Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI) researchers will attend and present at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Healthy Eating Research (HER) program's 14th annual grantee meeting in Denver, Colorado on March 3-4, 2020. Marisa Tsai, NPI data analyst, will present on "Dimensions of school food environments and anthropometric and dietary outcomes in children: The Healthy Communities Study. Gail Woodward-Lopez, NPI's associate director of research, will present on "Healthy Default Beverages in Children's Meals: Evaluating Policy Compliance and Impact Comparing Delaware and California". Tsai, along with Lauren Au, NPI associate researcher, Lorrene Ritchie, NPI director and Cooperative Extension specialist, and colleagues will also present a poster on their newly funded HER project, "Implementing and Evaluating the Impact for Children Ages 1 to 5 of Expanding the WIC Cash-Value Benefit for the Purchase of Fruits and Vegetables", which began in February 2020.
Nutrition Policy Institute is collaborating with The Brigham and Women's Hospital, Inc. and Public Health Foundation Enterprises (PHFE), Inc. on two projects funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Healthy Eating Research Program, as announced today. NPI's Christina Hecht and Laura Vollmer, of NPI's National Drinking Water Alliance, received funding to collaborate with Sonya Shin at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, Inc. on a project to expand and evaluate a community-based intervention to increase healthy beverage consumption by Navajo preschool children. The second project is a collaboration between NPI's Lorrene Ritchie and Lauren Au with Shannon Whaley of PHFE Women, Infants and Children (WIC) on a project that will pilot test and evaluate an expansion ofWIC's $9 per month cash value benefit for the purchase of fruits and vegetables to $23 per month. These research teams are being funded through Healthy Eating Research's annual call for proposals. This call for proposals focused exclusively on children ages 0-8, and the resulting projects focus on a range of topics, including WIC, healthy beverage consumption, and food purchasing patterns.
Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI) researchers published a new study suggesting childhood obesity prevention programs are not associated with unhealthy dieting in children and may in fact improve children's satisfaction with their body weight. The study was published in Pediatric Obesity by lead author Colleen Plimier from the University of California (UC), Berkeley School of Public Health, along with co-authors Sridharshi Hewawitharana, Karen Webb, Lauren Au, and Lorrene Ritchie from NPI, and Dianne Neumark‐Sztainer from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Study data were from 130 communities and over 5,000 children and their families from across the United States as part of the Healthy Communities Study, a six-year observational study funded by the National Institutes of Health.
