Food venue choice, consumer food environment, but not food venue availability within daily travel patterns are associated with dietary intake among adults, Lexington Kentucky 2011.

Objective: The retail food environment may be one important determinant of dietary intake. However, limited research focuses on individuals' food shopping behavior and activity within the retail food environment. This study's aims were to determine the association between six various dietary indicators and 1) food venue availability; 2) food venue choice and frequency; and 3) availability of healthy food within food venue.

A community-driven approach to identifying "winnable" policies using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Common Community Measures for Obesity Prevention.

Federally funded, community-based participatory research initiatives encourage the development and implementation of obesity prevention policies. In 2009, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published the Common Community Measures for Obesity Prevention (COCOMO), which include recommended strategies and measures to guide communities in identifying and evaluating environmental and policy strategies to prevent obesity. Agreeing on "winnable" policy issues can be challenging for community members.

Promoting use of nutrition and physical activity community resources among women in a family planning clinic setting.

Research increasingly supports promotion of nutrition and physical activity community resources to support individual-level health promotion interventions. However, even when such resources exist, they are often not well used. In this article, the authors describe the results of formative research regarding patient and health promotion professionals' perspectives on methods to encourage use of community resources among patients accessing family planning services at a local health department in eastern North Carolina.

Associations between maternal employment and time spent in nutrition-related behaviours among German children and mothers.

Objective: To examine associations between maternal employment and time spent engaging in nutrition-related behaviours among mothers and children using a nationally representative sample of households in West and East Germany.

Design: A cross-sectional analysis was performed using time-use data for a sample of mother-child dyads. Associations between maternal employment and time spent in nutrition-related activities such as eating at home, eating away from home and food preparation were estimated using a double-hurdle model.

Measures of the consumer food store environment: a systematic review of the evidence 2000-2011.

Description of the consumer food environment has proliferated in publication. However, there has been a lack of systematic reviews focusing on how the consumer food environment is associated with the following: (1) neighborhood characteristics; (2) food prices; (3) dietary patterns; and (4) weight status. We conducted a systematic review of primary, quantitative, observational studies, published in English that conducted an audit of the consumer food environment.

Examination of facilitators and barriers to home-based supplemental feeding with ready-to-use food for underweight children in western Uganda.

Poor complementary feeding practices and low-quality complementary foods are significant causes of growth faltering and child mortality throughout the developing world. Ready-to-use foods (RUF) are energy-dense, lipid-based products that do not require cooking or refrigeration that have been used to prevent and treat malnutrition among vulnerable children. The effectiveness of these products in improving child nutritional status depends on household use by caregivers.

Associations between food insecurity, supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP) benefits, and body mass index among adult females.

Obesity disproportionately affects low-income and minority individuals and has been linked with food insecurity, particularly among women. More research is needed to examine potential mechanisms linking obesity and food insecurity. Therefore, this study's purpose was to examine cross-sectional associations between food insecurity, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits per household member, perceived stress, and body mass index (BMI) among female SNAP participants in eastern North Carolina (n=202).

Conducting community audits to evaluate community resources for healthful lifestyle behaviors: an illustration from rural eastern North Carolina.

A community audit is a qualitative and quantitative research technique in which researchers drive through a community to observe its physical and social attributes, primarily through windshield tours and "ground truthing." Ground truthing is a verification process that uses data gathered by direct observation to corroborate data gathered from secondary sources. Community audits have been used for epidemiologic studies and in program planning for health-promotion interventions.

Association between travel times and food procurement practices among female supplemental nutrition assistance program participants in eastern North Carolina.

Objective: To examine associations between self-reported vehicular travel behaviors, perceived stress, food procurement practices, and body mass index among female Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants.

Analysis: The authors used correlation and regression analyses to examine cross-sectional associations between travel time and distance, perceived stress, food procurement practices (grocery shopping frequency, fast-food consumption, home meal consumption), and body mass index among female SNAP participants aged 20-65 years (n = 215) in eastern North Carolina.

Results: There were positive associations (P < .

Qualitative perspectives on the use of traditional and nontraditional food venues among middle- and low-income women in Eastern North Carolina.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine motivations for use of food venues among 23 urban and rural women from eastern North Carolina. Women were eligible if they cared for children, were non-Hispanic black or white, and were English speakers. Interviews elicited participants' decisions for food venue use.

Associations between natural amenities, physical activity, and body mass index in 100 North Carolina counties.

Purpose: To examine associations between county-level natural amenities, physical activity (PA), and body mass index (BMI).

Design And Setting: Cross-sectional study among 100 North Carolina counties.

Measures: We obtained percentage of county residents meeting PA criteria and county-wide means for reported height and weight from the North Carolina Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, combining years 2003, 2005, and 2007.

The association between the food environment and weight status among eastern North Carolina youth.

Objective: To examine associations between various measures of the food environment and BMI percentile among youth.

Design: Cross-sectional, observational.

Setting: Pitt County, eastern North Carolina.

Examining associations among obesity and per capita farmers' markets, grocery stores/supermarkets, and supercenters in US counties.

Fruit and vegetable consumption is an important component of a healthful diet, yet fruits and vegetables are underconsumed, especially among low-income groups with high prevalence rates of obesity. This study used data from the US Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service Food Environment Atlas to examine county-level associations among obesity prevalence and per capita farmers' markets, grocery stores/supermarkets, and supercenters, adjusted for natural amenities, percent black, percent Hispanic, median age, and median household income, stratified by county metropolitan status. In models that included all three of the food venues, supercenters and grocery stores per capita were inversely associated with obesity in the combined (metro and nonmetro) and metro counties.

Food stamp participation is associated with fewer meals away from home, yet higher body mass index and waist circumference in a nationally representative sample.

Objective: To examine associations between Food Stamp (FS) participation, meals away from home (MAFH), body mass index (BMI), and waist circumference (WC).

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: Nationally representative.

Commute times, food retail gaps, and body mass index in North Carolina counties.

Introduction: The prevalence of obesity is higher in rural than in urban areas of the United States, for reasons that are not well understood. We examined correlations between percentage of rural residents, commute times, food retail gap per capita, and body mass index (BMI) among North Carolina residents.

Methods: We used 2000 census data to determine each county's percentage of rural residents and 1990 and 2000 census data to obtain mean county-level commute times.

Measuring the retail food environment in rural and urban North Carolina counties.

Background: Development of accurate and sensitive methods to characterize the food environment is needed. Thus, we examined convergent and criterion validity of 2 retail food environment data sources and then examined differences in predictive validity between 3 ways of measuring the rural and urban food environment.

Methods: Ten counties were selected in each of 3 North Carolina regions (n = 30).

Rationale and development of the Move More North Carolina: Recommended Standards for After-School Physical Activity.

The purpose of this article is to describe the rationale and procedure employed in developing the Move More North Carolina: Recommended Standards for After-School Physical Activity, which was publicly released statewide in April 2009. The Standards outline evidenced-based best practices for after-school programs to implement in order to increase amount and quality of physical activity (PA) among program participants. The Standards can be applied in any after-school program and were developed to benefit the approximately 152,000 school-aged children who are served by NC after-school programs each year.

A qualitative examination of perceived barriers and facilitators of physical activity for urban and rural youth.

Many adolescents, both rural and urban, are not meeting the recommended levels for physical activity (PA). This investigation was designed to elicit socioecologic barriers and facilitators for PA in rural and urban middle school youth and their parents. Thirteen focus groups were conducted with 41 youth and 50 parents from eastern North Carolina.

Perceptions of the community food environment and related influences on food choice among midlife women residing in rural and urban areas: a qualitative analysis.

Introduction: Qualitative research on food choice has rarely focused on individuals' perceptions of the community food environment. Women remain gatekeepers of the family diet and food purchasing. Therefore we assessed midlife, Southern women's perceptions of the food environment.

Iterative design, implementation and evaluation of a supplemental feeding program for underweight children ages 6-59 months in Western Uganda.

Objective: In this paper we describe the development, implementation, evaluation, and subsequent improvements of a supplemental feeding program that provides community-based care to underweight children in a rural East African setting, using a locally-sourced and produced ready-to-use food (RUF).

Methods: Production teams were trained to grind soybeans and groundnuts (peanuts), which were then mixed with moringa oleifera leaf powder to form an energy-dense supplemental food, designed for use as an RUF. Eligible children (based on low weight-for-age or mid-upper-arm circumference < 12 cm) received RUF of approximately 682 kcal per day for five weeks.

Randomized trial of a clinic-based, community-supported, lifestyle intervention to improve physical activity and diet: the North Carolina enhanced WISEWOMAN project.

Objective: To determine if a clinic-based behavioral intervention program for low-income mid-life women that emphasizes use of community resources will increase moderate intensity physical activity (PA) and improve dietary intake.

Methods: Randomized trial conducted from May 2003 to December 2004 at one community health center in Wilmington, NC. A total of 236 women, ages 40-64, were randomized to receive an Enhanced Intervention (EI) or Minimal Intervention (MI).

Surviving but not quite thriving: anthropometric survey of children aged 6 to 59 months in a rural Western Uganda district.

Located in Western Uganda, Bundibugyo District has enjoyed nearly a decade of relative political stability. However, the current nutritional status of young children is not known. A survey conducted in 1999 assessed the prevalence of global malnutrition, but not stunting.

Applying the RE-AIM framework to assess the public health impact of policy change.

Background And Purpose: Planning and evaluation models have been developed to assess the public health impact of health promotion interventions. However, few have been applied to health policies. There is an important need for models to help design and evaluate health policies.

A guide for developing intervention tools addressing environmental factors to improve diet and physical activity.

Low-income populations have an elevated risk of obesity and associated chronic diseases. Environmental factors influence health behaviors that contribute to obesity. Although low-income neighborhoods may pose barriers to healthy behaviors, they may also have health-promoting environmental features (e.

Validation of a brief dietary assessment to guide counseling for cardiovascular disease risk reduction in an underserved population.

Background: Brief dietary assessment tools are needed to guide counseling in underserved populations to reduce cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. The Dietary Risk Assessment is one such tool modified over time to reflect emerging evidence concerning diet and CVD risk.

Objective: To examine the capacity of the modified Dietary Risk Assessment tool to measure aspects of diet quality in a sample of underserved, midlife (aged 40 to 64 years) women, by comparing Dietary Risk Assessment results to those of a longer food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) and with serum carotenoids.