The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides a vital buffer against hunger and poverty for 47.6 million Americans. Using 2013 California Dietary Practices Survey data, we assessed support for policies to strengthen the nutritional influence of SNAP. Among SNAP participants, support ranged from 74% to 93% for providing monetary incentives for fruits and vegetables, restricting purchases of sugary beverages, and providing more total benefits. Nonparticipants expressed similar levels of support. These approaches may alleviate the burden of diet-related disease in low-income populations.
Objective:
School-based CalFresh Healthy Living (CFHL) (California’s SNAP-Ed) interventions adapted to new learning environments necessitated by COVID-19. We examined the impact of these interventions on student diet and physical activity (PA) outcomes.
Design:
Quasi-experimental, two-group, pre-post.
Setting:
California public schools with ≥50% of students Free and Reduced Price Meal-eligible (nintervention=47; ncomparison=17).
Participants:
Fourth and fifth grade students who completed the online Eating and Activity Tool for Students at pre and post (nintervention=1,087; ncomparison=846 students).
Results:
Intervention students reported a significantly greater increase in consumption frequency of total fruit (by 0.16 times/day; p=0.032), driven primarily by a greater increase in 100% fruit juice (by 0.11 times/day; p=0.007). Intervention students reported a significantly greater increase in total vegetable consumption frequency (by 0.45 times/day; p<0.001) than comparison students. Specifically, intervention students reported increased, whereas comparison students reported decreased, consumption frequencies for starchy vegetables (0.05 vs. -0.10 times/day, p<0.001), salad/green vegetables (0.01 vs. -0.11 times/day, p=0.005), and beans (0.04 vs. -0.03 times/day, p=0.025). Consumption frequency of other vegetables decreased in both groups (-0.01 vs. -0.09 times/day) but decreased more among comparison students (p=0.048). No differences in pre-post change in PA outcomes were detected.
Conclusions:
Findings suggest that despite COVID-19-related challenges necessitating program modifications, CFHL interventions played a role in protecting student consumption of fruit and vegetables during the 2020-21 school year. Therefore, it appears that school-based CFHL interventions can be a viable means of safeguarding student nutrition at a time when access to nutritious food and PA opportunities are hindered.
To determine the effectiveness of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program- Education (SNAP-Ed) nutrition and physical activity programming in elementary schools, it is necessary to recruit socioeconomically similar comparison schools not receiving SNAP-Ed programming. We developed a flexible recruitment strategy to tailor our approach to each individual school district and site. Here we discuss the lessons learned during the 10-month recruitment period, including early outreach, emphasizing participation benefits, leveraging and building relationships, and visiting sites.
The audience most interested in SHFPP include food systems colleagues who work with lowincome populations and those who provide nutrition education support to food pantries. Theory, Prior Research, Rationale: SHFPP was based on the Socio-Ecological Model (SEM). The SEM provided a framework for understanding the multifaceted and interactive effects of the environment and the individual. Using pantry staff interviews, client surveys, and focus groups, the SHFPP team developed a toolkit to help pantries with making educational, environmental, and policy changes to community food pantries (Canto, Park-Mroch, & Ingham, 2017). This presentation builds upon the work of the SHFPP team and investigated further into the facilitators and barriers to making safe and healthy changes in food pantries. Description: The SHFPP toolkit included 25 tools in four specific areas: "Give your pantry a healthy boost", "Promote food safety in your pantry", "Develop your action plan", and "Evaluate your efforts". Several pantries who used the toolkit to make changes were interviewed. We summarized the interview data into two topic areas, facilitators and barriers to making healthy and safe changes. Evaluation: In-depth interviews with a convenience sample of nine community food pantry staff are presented. The sample included pantry representatives of urban and rural pantries; pantries who provided pre-boxed food packages and those who gave their clients food choices; and pantries whose clientele belonged to Latino and African American groups. Specific tools in the SHFPP toolkit were reported to be helpful for food pantries who make safe and healthy changes including nutrition education efforts, donor education, and developing food donation and distribution policies. Conclusions and Implications: Community pantries who make healthy and safe changes to operations and pantry environment should focus on communication and education of their staff, clientele, and donors.
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