Giving Compass' Take:
- Research indicates that grocery stores and food retailers have the power to dictate the healthy diets of children and their families.
- How can food retail improve its accessibility when it comes to healthy foods? How can donors help address food deserts?
- Read about innovative ways to keep grocery stores open in rural areas.
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Healthy Eating Research (HER) recently released research that aims to understand the strategies that best increase consumer demand for healthier products. The report, A National Research Agenda to Support Health Eating Through Retail Strategies, highlights ways to encourage better health through food choices. HER also released a journal review to accompany the report, which appears in a special issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
“Food retail is a key setting that influences the diets and health of children and families. Yet the healthfulness of foods and beverages available in retail food stores differs widely across the U.S.,” Kirsten Arm, MPH, RDN, a research analyst at HER tells Food Tank. “This is a sector where industry has a large role to play in improving the availability, accessibility, and affordability of healthier products meeting nutrition recommendations.”
The research agenda report defines key research questions and areas for future research. And the nine papers in the special journal issue examine the importance of researching strategies that promote healthy eating. Both help to outline next steps for research and implementation for healthier habits in the grocery store.
HER, a national United States research program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), identified a need for a national research agenda in 2010. This was done in collaboration with the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and The Food Trust.
The research agenda report “outlines 10 key issue areas that emerged as priorities for future research–five focus on understanding the current food retail environment and consumer behavior and five focus on assessing implementation and effectiveness of interventions and policies,” says Arm.
These include understanding the food retail environment, consumer shopping behaviors, targeted food marketing, and food retail design layouts. Assessment areas included leveraging the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), limiting unhealthy food establishments, and addressing social determinants of health.
Read the full article about grocery stores by Amanda Fong at Food Tank.