Development of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025-2030 (DGA) is underway. The US Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of Agriculture recently asked for public comments on the proposed scientific questions to be examined in the review of evidence supporting the development of the DGA. Nutrition Policy Institute's senior policy advisor, Christina Hecht, submitted comments to the US Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of Agriculture regarding scientific questions related to sugar-sweetened beverages and drinking water to be examined to support the development of the DGA. The public comment period was open from April 15 to May 16, 2022. Public comments are available to the public online through Regulations.gov. HHS and USDA will consider all public comments posted to Regulations.gov in relation to the specified criteria. Comments will be used to prioritize the scientific questions to be examined by the 2025 DGA Advisory Committee. In the coming months, HHS and USDA will seek nominations from the public for the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. Sign up to receive email updates on the DGA development process and other related news.
Wendi Gosliner, senior researcher and policy advisor at the Nutrition Policy Institute, spoke on a panel on policy and advocacy on January 28 at a virtual symposium hosted by the University of California, Berkeley and Plant Futures. ‘Symposium–2022: The Countdown: Exploring the Future of Plant-Centric Food Systems,' convened attendees for two days to discuss climate, agriculture, nutrition, and planetary health and to hear from leaders in the food system working on creative solutions to challenges in these areas. The Plant Futures initiative launched in 2021 as a multidisciplinary program at UC Berkeley focused on plant-centric food systems and their impacts on human health, animal welfare, and planetary sustainability, with programming expanding to campuses across the globe.
Schools are an ideal setting for policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) approaches to childhood obesity prevention. An initial assessment of a school's health environment, policies, and practices is critical for planning and identifying priority PSE interventions, while reassessment can be used to identify measurable change for ongoing planning and evaluation purposes. School-based obesity prevention programs need an assessment that measures wellness policy implementation and compliance at the school level, as required by the Local School Wellness Policy Implementation Final Rule of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. The assessment must comprehensively assesses school nutrition and physical activity practices, and have the measurement properties necessary to detect change over time and differences between schools. Nutrition Policy Institute researchers shared the development and psychometric testing of a site-level questionnaire for elementary schools that fills this gap in an article published December 20, 2021 in the journal Childhood Obesity. Elementary schools and their partners can use the new instrument to plan PSE interventions, measure obesity-prevention best practices and wellness policy implementation, and evaluate their progress towards achieving best practices in nutrition and physical activity. Study authors include researchers from the NPI CalFresh Healthy Living evaluation team, Carolyn Rider, Janice Kao, Sridharshi Hewawitharana, Christina Becker, Amanda Linares, and Gail Woodward-Lopez.
- Author: Danielle L. Lee
- Author: Wendi Gosliner
- Editor: Lorrene Ritchie
California's Free School Meals for All (FSMFA) policy is a landmark investment in free school meals for all students that may reduce stigma and improve students' food security, diet, health, school attendance and academic performance. It will be implemented beginning in school year 2022-23. The University of California Nutrition Policy Institute received funding from the California state legislative office to assess the FSMA program and policy implementation through a formative evaluation to inform initial implementation, process evaluation to identify challenges and facilitators to optimize ongoing implementation, and outcome evaluation to quantify impacts on schools, students, families and communities over time. The four-year study began in October 2021 with NPI's Wendi Gosliner as principal investigator in collaboration with research team members Lorrene Ritchie, Christina Hecht and Ken Hecht. The NPI Research team is collaborating with multiple partners, including the California Department of Education, a variety of non-profit and community-based organizations that engage parents and students, as well as a team of national researchers studying the implementation of free school meals for all students in Maine.
In the United States, over 25 million people work and learn at colleges and universities, consuming an untold number of meals, snacks, and beverages while on campus. Unlike in K-12 schools, higher education institutions are not governed by federal policies to ensure that foods and beverages sold on campus meet minimum nutrition standards. While many universities participate in voluntary campus wellness initiatives, only one university–the University of California (UC), Berkeley–has officially adopted a comprehensive, campus-wide nutrition policy, the Food and Beverage Choices (FBC) Policy. Researchers at the UC Nutrition Policy Institute and UC Berkeley collaborated with the FBC policy implementation team to publish a case report in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, presenting detailed information on the development, establishment, implementation and evaluation of the FBC policy. The report includes discussion of the challenges and barriers encountered during policy implementation and offers valuable insight for other universities seeking to develop and implement their own nutrition policies. The report was developed by Zachary Rickrode-Fernandez of Center for Environmental Health and UC Berkeley, Janice Kao of the UC Nutrition Policy Institute, and Mary Lesser and Kim Guess of UC Berkeley.