The University of California Nutrition Policy Institute director, Lorrene Ritchie, is a keynote presenter at the Conference on School Meals. The conference is hosted by the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences in Bergen, Norway June 8-10, 2022. Ritchie's talk, ‘Impact of school meals on student nutrition and health: Experiences from the United States' opens the conference proceedings on June 8. Ritchie will highlight historical perspectives of the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program, the costs and benefits of the program, the role of nutrition education, and universal school meals during the COVID-19 pandemic. She will also be highlighting topics for future study.
Marisa Tsai has been named as a finalist for the Emerging Leaders in Nutrition Science Abstract Recognition Award Program, a program of the American Society for Nutrition that recognizes the highest quality research presented by students and young investigators at Nutrition 2022 Live Online. Tsai is a research data analyst at the University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Nutrition Policy Institute, and a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health. More than 700 abstracts were submitted by students and postdoctoral fellows and the award program aims to recognize the top 15% highest scoring abstracts. Abstracts were rated by more than 400 nutrition scientists. Finalists will be recognized during the Nutrition 2022 Live Online conference that will be held virtually from June 14-16, 2022. Tsai's abstract is titled “Larger WIC Cash Value Benefit for Vegetables and Fruit Is Associated With Lower Food Insecurity and Improved Participant Satisfaction in WIC Families With Children”.
Nutrition Policy Institute researchers will be sharing results from their latest studies at the upcoming Pediatric Academic Societies 2022 Meeting. A collaborative project including NPI's Christina Hecht and Ken Hecht, ‘Parent Perception of Quality, Appeal and Healthfulness of School Meals in the San Joaquin Valley during COVID-19: A Photovoice Project' will be presented by Tatum Sohlberg of Stanford University on April 23. Lorrene Ritchie's collaborative project ‘Effectiveness of an Elementary School Drinking Water Promotion and Access Intervention for Prevention of Obesity: A Cluster-Randomized Trial' will be presented by Anisha Patel of Stanford University also on April 23. The meeting happens in Denver, CO, April 21-25, 2022, with in-person, live-streaming and on-demand pre-recorded content available.
The American Rescue Plan Act increased the monthly benefit for participants in the federal Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) to purchase fruits and vegetables–also known as the Cash Value Benefit. The amount increased from $9 per month for children and $11 per month for women participants to $35 for all participants over the summer of 2021. Further adjustments were made to the benefits in October 2021, which changed to $24 per month for children and $45 and $47 for women, depending on their breastfeeding status, through the end of March 2022. Researchers at the Nutrition Policy Institute collaborated with the National WIC Association to understand how this increase impacted child fruit and vegetable intake and participants' perceptions of the increase to the Cash Value Benefit. Lorrene Ritchie, Nutrition Policy Institute director and cooperative extension specialist, presented evaluation findings on Feb. 15 2022 during a presentation at the 2022 National WIC Association Virtual National Policy Conference titled, “Building on the WIC Benefit Bump: Opportunities to Further Align WIC with DGA Recommendations”. Evaluation findings suggest the higher benefit amount may improve child fruit and vegetable intake by up to 1/3 cup per day, and that WIC participants prefer the higher amount.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education (SNAP-Ed) is an evidence-based, federally funded education program to support participants eligible for receiving SNAP food benefits. SNAP-Ed initiatives include nutrition education classes, social marketing campaigns, and efforts to improve policies, systems, and the environment of communities; the program is known as CalFresh Healthy Living in California. The COVID-19 pandemic produced unprecedented challenges for SNAP-Ed implementation in California. Nutrition Policy Institute researchers from the CalFresh Healthy Living Evaluation team–Gail Woodward Lopez, Janice Kao, and Christina Becker–presented at the Association of SNAP Nutrition Education Administrators virtual conference on Feb. 10, 2022 a talk titled “Where do we go from here? COVID-19 impacts on local health department SNAP-Ed programming, priority populations and equity in California”. The talk was part of a panel moderated by NPI researcher Sridharshi Hewawitharana. Researchers presented results of a web-based survey of 1064 majority Black, Indigenous, and people of color SNAP-Ed eligible parents across California and results from online reporting from local health departments that implement SNAP-Ed at over 500 sites. Results showed dramatic changes in food and physical activity acquisition and SNAP-Ed programming, reductions in physical activity, mixed impacts on dietary intake, and a high prevalence of perceived weight gain.