The UC ANR Nutrition Policy Institute welcomed Sibani Michael Bose to our team on April 6, 2020 to serve as our new Chief Business Officer. Bose is a higher education administrator who spent 13 years working at the University of California, Berkeley after obtaining her bachelor's degree there. She comes to us very skilled in contracts and grants administration as well as human resources management and strategic planning. Bose relocated from the Los Angeles region where she was Business Manager at the City of Hope National Medical Center. She brings extensive experience working with academics, staff, and students.
Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI) and UC Berkeley School of Public Health researchers published a new study in partnership with the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) on the impact of a multi-component intervention to increase students' lunch participation in SFUSD public middle and high schools. The study, titled "The Impact of a Multipronged Intervention to Increase School Lunch Participation among Secondary School Students in an Urban Public School District" was published in Childhood Obesity by UC Berkeley researchers Hannah Thompson and Kristine Madsen; NPI's Wendi Gosliner and Lorrene Ritchie; UC Berkeley doctoral alumna Annie Reed; and SFUSD's Orla O'Keefe and Kate Wobbekind. Data are from a 3-year quasi-randomized study among 24 secondary schools, half of which received an intervention including cafeteria redesign, additional school lunch points-of-sale (mobile carts and vending machines), and teacher education. This research was funded by USDA's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program.
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.
To mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in California, University of California (UC) campuses, the UC Office of the President, UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) and the Nutrition Policy Institute are working to protect our community by issuing guidance to minimize face-to-face interactions, reduce commuting and travel, and enable social distancing. On March 16, six San Francisco Bay Area counties announced shelter-in-place orders, and the UC Office of the President in Oakland extended their telecommute date through least April 7 to align with county directives. Nutrition Policy Institute has also adjusted the proposed end date for our telecommuting and limited on-site operations status to April 7 in order to align with UC Office of the President. For more information on how UC is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, please visit this link. To contact any of us at NPI, please visit our NPI staff page online.
Nutrition Policy Institute's latest study in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior March 2020 issue suggests that schools across the U.S. adhered equally to the federal 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act school meal nutrition standards despite poverty level. The study was conducted using data collected in 2013-2015 from over 401 U.S. elementary and middle schools as part of the Healthy Communities Study. The study was lead by Lauren Au, NPI associate researcher, in collaboration with NPI researchers Lorrene Ritchie, Klara Gurzo, Marisa Tsai, Janice Kao, Wendi Gosliner and Patricia Guenther from the University of Utah Department of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology. Results from the study are available for free download until April 24, 2020.
