- Author: Danielle L. Lee
- Editor: Wendi Gosliner
California will invest $20 million in the Healthy Refrigeration Grant Program, which offers grants to individual stores as well as organizations to expand access to fresh foods in communities experiencing reduced access to fresh, diverse foods. Civil Eats highlighted the investment in a Feb. 22, 2022 article titled ‘California Gives a Big Boost to Corner Stores that Sell Fresh Produce'. The article features evaluation findings of the grant program led by Nutrition Policy Institute researcher Wendi Gosliner in collaboration with Marisa Tsai and Elsa Esparza. Gosliner's research is quoted as “store owners noted that the Healthy Refrigeration Grant Program's California-grown specification posed a significant hurdle. Some produce doesn't have origin labels at all, making it impossible to determine if it qualifies, and sometimes the fruits and vegetables that customers prefer aren't available at an affordable price from California growers.”
- Author: Danielle L. Lee
- Editor: Lorrene Ritchie
Nutrition Policy Institute senior researcher and policy advisor, Wendi Gosliner, was featured in an article in Western FarmPress about a pilot program for San Diego County CalFresh participants to receive monthly text messages about the benefits of California-grown fruits and vegetables. Gosliner worked to evaluate the pilot program in collaboration with the UC San Diego Center for Community Health and the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency. Gosliner is quoted as, “In a text, you have very few characters you're communicating with people, so we wanted to make sure we were using cutting-edge behavioral science to construct those messages to have the most impact." A majority of the program recipients who received messages from September 2020 to March 2021 responded to a survey saying they appreciated receiving the text messages. Gosliner reports, “What we see is that there's definitely a decent-sized population of people participating in CalFresh – now this is just in San Diego County but imagine the entire state – who would benefit from having this kind of information available to them, and there is at least a subset of people who really liked it."
- Author: Danielle L. Lee
- Editor: Lorrene Ritchie
Childhood obesity rates increased during the global COVID-19 pandemic according to a study published in August in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Results of the study, which included electronic medical record data of 200,000 children ages 5 to 17 in Kaiser Permanente Southern California, were featured in an August 31, 2021 article in The Washington Post. Nutrition Policy Institute director and cooperative extension specialist Lorrene Ritchie was quoted in the article, “before the coronavirus, studies showed that students tended to gain weight during the summer when away from school. They tend to gain weight at an accelerated rate, then during the school year their body mass index goes down, but not as much, so over time kids are getting more and more overweight and obese.” Ritchie also stated that “regular summer weight gain among students is attributed to missing recess, P.E. and school sports, as well as not getting exercise associated with traveling to and from school. It is also because studies show that school meals are, on average, healthier than what children bring from home. Also, kids in school have access to breakfast and lunch; at home during the summer there is frequently unfettered access to food all day long.” Ritchie was further quoted that “companies selling junk food have had more access during the pandemic to market directly to children who spent more time on screens. What this has taught us is that our food environment is way out of line with what we need. Food companies are geared to getting us to eat as many calories as possible. And we are geared toward eating when food is available.”
- Author: Danielle L. Lee
Lorrene Ritchie, director and UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE) specialist at the Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI), was quoted in an article on November 6, 2020 in UPI titled "Mindfulness-based program boosts preschoolers' interest in fruit, veggies" and another article on November 9, 2020 in The Washington Newsday titled "A program based on mindfulness increases preschool children's interest in fruit and vegetables." The articles highlight a recent study conducted by researchers at Purdue University on a mindfulness-based exercise program to encourage preschool children to make healthier food choices. Dr. Ritchie, who was not involved in the study, is quoted, "Repeated exposure of young children to fruits and vegetables is key to getting them to like them and eat them. It can take up to 20 times – and even more for some children – for a child to learn to like a new food, especially vegetables and other things that aren't sweet, salty or high in fat.”