- (Focus Area) Food
Increasing participation in school meal programs can improve dietary quality and reduce nutrition insecurity. School food service directors have indicated an urgent need for marketing materials encouraging school meal participation. Nutrition Policy Institute will partner with Anna Grummon of Stanford University to develop and evaluate a marketing campaign to increase school meal participation. The evaluation will help to determine the school meal messaging that most resonates with parents. The two-year
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you missed UC Davis distinguished professor James R. Carey's well-attended seminar on "California's Fruit Fly Invasion: A 70-Year Struggle Nears Critical Mass," it's now online on YouTube.
His seminar, which took place June 3 in Briggs Hall, UC Davis, and on Zoom, drew global interest, stretching as far as Australia.
Carey pointed out that Callfornia has "the largest agricultural industry in the United States ($55 billion), is the fifth largest worldwide supplier of agricultural produces, grows more than 200 different crops, and "most fruit crops have been attacked by...
The Nutrition Policy Institute, founded in 2014, is celebrating a decade of impactful research. The latest episode of the Spanish-language podcast, Charla y Café al mediodía, features NPI senior researcher Ron Strochlic discussing the Institute's history and achievements. The podcast highlights NPI's origins at the University of California, Berkeley's Center for Weight and Health and its significant research on sugar-sweetened beverage taxes, the CalFresh Market Match program, and improving access to drinking water in schools and nutritious food in California...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Six communicators with the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) won major awards from the international Association for Communication Excellence (ACE), a professional organization that supports and showcases science communication in agriculture, natural resources, and life and human sciences.
Ricardo Vela, manager of UC ANR News and Information Outreach in Spanish (NOS), won the ACE 2024 Rising Star Award, an annual award that "honors communicators, instructors and researchers who demonstrate...
- Author: Brianna Aguayo Villalon
- Editor: Monica Daniela Zuercher
- Editor: Wendi Gosliner
- Editor: Lorrene D Ritchie
School meals have been shown to be the healthiest source of food for US students on average and have been associated with multiple benefits to students. However, not all students eat school meals, even if they are eligible for free or reduced-price meals based on their family income. This study examined the association between parent perspectives about school meals and student meal participation during the school year 2021-22 in the context of the California Universal School Meals policy. NPI researchers surveyed 1,110 parents of California K-12 students and identified three groups of parental perceptions: positive perceptions (e.g. liking school meals...