Clinical-Community Partnerships to Identify Patients With Food Insecurity and Address Food Needs.

Introduction: More than 42 million people in the United States are food insecure. Although some health care entities are addressing food insecurity among patients because of associations with disease risk and management, little is known about the components of these initiatives.

Methods: The Systematic Screening and Assessment Method was used to conduct a landscape assessment of US health care entity-based programs that screen patients for food insecurity and connect them with food resources.

State-Level Farmers Market Activities: A Review of CDC-Funded State Public Health Actions That Support Farmers Markets.

Context: Introducing farmers markets to underserved areas, or supporting existing farmers markets, can increase access and availability of fruits and vegetables and encourage healthy eating. Since 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)'s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity (DNPAO) has provided guidance and funding to state health departments (SHDs) to support the implementation of interventions, including activities around farmers markets, to address healthy eating, and improve the access to and availability of fruits and vegetables at state and community levels.

Objective: For this project, we identified state-level farmers market activities completed with CDC's DNPAO funding from 2003 to 2013.

Common ways Americans are incorporating fruits and vegetables into their diet: intake patterns by meal, source and form, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2007-2010.

Objective: We explored how Americans aged ≥2 years who consumed the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables on a given day incorporated fruits and vegetables into their diet compared with those who did not consume recommended amounts.

Design: We used 1 d of dietary recall data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2007-2010 to examine cross-sectional differences in mean intakes of fruits and vegetables in cup-equivalents by meal, source and form between the two groups.

Setting: USA.

Networking to Improve Nutrition Policy Research.

Effective nutrition and obesity policies that improve the food environments in which Americans live, work, and play can have positive effects on the quality of human diets. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) Nutrition and Obesity Policy Research and Evaluation Network (NOPREN) conducts transdisciplinary practice-based policy research and evaluation to foster understanding of the effectiveness of nutrition policies. The articles in this special collection bring to light a set of policies that are being used across the United States.

Using Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Data to Estimate the Percentage of the Population Meeting US Department of Agriculture Food Patterns Fruit and Vegetable Intake Recommendations.

Most Americans do not eat enough fruits and vegetables with significant variation by state. State-level self-reported frequency of fruit and vegetable consumption is available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). However, BRFSS cannot be used to directly compare states' progress toward national goals because of incongruence in units used to measure intake and because distributions from frequency data are not reflective of usual intake.

The Association of Meal Practices and Other Dietary Correlates With Dietary Intake Among High School Students in the United States, 2010.

Purpose: To examine behavioral and environmental factors that may be related to dietary behaviors among U.S. high school students.

Fruit and vegetable intake during infancy and early childhood.

Objectives: To examine the association of timing of introduction and frequency of fruit and vegetable intake during infancy with frequency of fruit and vegetable intake at age 6 years in a cohort of US children.

Methods: We analyzed data on fruit and vegetable intake during late infancy, age of fruit and vegetable introduction, and frequency of fruit and vegetable intake at 6 years from the Infant Feeding Practices Study II and the Year 6 Follow-Up (Y6FU) Study. We determined the percent of 6-year-old children consuming fruits and vegetables less than once per day and examined associations with infant fruit and vegetable intake using logistic regression modeling, controlling for multiple covariates (n = 1078).

Vital signs: fruit and vegetable intake among children - United States, 2003-2010.

Background: Eating more fruits and vegetables adds underconsumed nutrients to diets, reduces the risks for leading causes of illness and death, and helps manage body weight. This report describes trends in the contributions of fruits and vegetables to the diets of children aged 2-18 years.

Methods: CDC analyzed 1 day of 24-hour dietary recalls from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys from 2003 to 2010 to estimate trends in children's fruit and vegetable intake in cup-equivalents per 1,000 calories (CEPC) and trends by sex, age, race/ethnicity, family income to poverty ratio, and obesity status.

The food and water system: impacts on obesity.

The Weight of the Nation™ (WON) conference was held in Washington, D.C. This article presents the issues and topics presented and discussed within the Food and Water System: Agriculture, Access and Sustainability track.

Childhood obesity task forces established by state legislatures, 2001-2010.

Introduction: States and communities are considering policy and environmental strategies, including enacting legislation, to reduce and prevent childhood obesity. One legislative approach has been to create task forces to understand key issues and develop a course of action. The goal of this study was to describe state-level, childhood obesity task forces in the United States created by legislation from 2001 through 2010.

A comparison of fruit and vegetable intake estimates from three survey question sets to estimates from 24-hour dietary recall interviews.

Background: Fruit and vegetable (F/V) intake surveillance can provide information critical to the design and evaluation of interventions and the assessment of progress toward national intake objectives. The CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) assesses F/V intake among high school students using six questions about the frequency of intake in times per day. It is not known whether F/V intake frequency in times per day can be used as a proxy for intake in servings per day.

Creating supportive nutrition environments for population health impact and health equity: an overview of the Nutrition and Obesity Policy Research and Evaluation Network's efforts.

Childhood obesity is a major threat to individual health and society overall. Policies that support healthier food and beverage choices have been endorsed by many decision makers. These policies may reach a large proportion of the population or in some circumstances aim to reduce nutrition disparities to ensure health equity.

Growing the Field: Current Approaches to Data Collection at Farmers' Markets.

There is limited published research about the dietary impacts of farmers' markets. We sought to understand whether market managers collect data about markets and to examine the instruments and strategies used. Of the 359 market managers contacted across the United States, representing 543 markets, 185 managers participated in a telephone survey.

Strategies for pediatric practitioners to increase fruit and vegetable consumption in children.

High intake of fruits and vegetables (FV) is associated with a decreased risk for many chronic diseases and may assist in weight management, but few children and adolescents consume the recommended amounts of FV. The pediatric practitioner can positively influence FV consumption of children through patient-level interventions (eg, counseling, connecting families to community resources), community-level interventions (eg, advocacy, community involvement), and health care facility-level interventions (eg, creating a healthy food environment in the clinical setting). This article reviews the importance of FV consumption, recommended intakes for children, and strategies by which pediatric practitioners can influence FV consumption of children.

A worksite obesity intervention: results from a group-randomized trial.

Objectives: We used a participatory process to develop an obesity intervention appropriate for elementary school personnel.

Methods: A randomized controlled trial included 16 school worksites (8 intervention, 8 control). Intervention schools formed committees to develop and implement health promotion activities for employees.

The relationship between parity and overweight varies with household wealth and national development.

Background: Recent studies support a positive relationship between parity and overweight among women of developing countries; however, it is unclear whether these effects vary by household wealth and national development. Our objective was to determine whether the association between parity and overweight [body mass index (BMI) > or =25 kg/m(2)] in women living in developing countries varies with levels of national human development and/or household wealth.

Methods: We used data from 28 nationally representative, cross-sectional surveys conducted between 1996 and 2003 (n = 275 704 women, 15-49 years).