Using a Marketing Evaluation Tool to Optimize a Social Marketing Campaign: Insights From a Copy Test of a You're the Mom Campaign Ad.

A copy test is a business tool for assessing advertisements. This report provides an example of how copy test may be used within nutrition education practice and research. A public health nutrition advertisement for You're the Mom was copy tested with a market research firm.

Child and parent perspectives on healthier side dishes and beverages in restaurant kids' meals: results from a national survey in the United States.

Background: Children frequently consume foods from restaurants; considering the quick-service sector alone, 1/3 of children eat food from these restaurants on a given day, and among these consumers, 1/3 of their daily calories come from fast food. Restaurant foods and beverages are second only to grocery store foods and beverages in their contribution to total energy intake of U.S.

Promoting healthier children's meals at quick-service and full-service restaurants: Results from a pilot and feasibility study.

High-calorie restaurant foods contribute to childhood overweight. Increased consumer demand for healthier kids' meals may motivate the restaurant industry to provide additional healthy options. This study pilot-tested a combination of four strategies (toy incentive, placemats, server prompts, signage) designed to increase demand for healthier kids' meals, which were defined as those eligible for the National Restaurant Association's Kids LiveWell program.

Low parental awareness about energy (calorie) recommendations for children's restaurant meals: findings from a national survey in the USA.

Objective: To assess parental awareness of per-meal energy (calorie) recommendations for children's restaurant meals and to explore whether calorie awareness was associated with parental sociodemographic characteristics and frequency of eating restaurant food.

Design: Cross-sectional online survey administered in July 2014. Parents estimated calories (i.

A pilot and feasibility study to assess children's consumption in quick-service restaurants using plate waste methodology.

Background: Children regularly consume foods from quick-service restaurants (QSR), but little is known about the foods that children order, the calories and nutrients consumed, the accuracy of stated calorie information, or the ability to assess food orders and consumption in QSRs. This study evaluated the feasibility of plate waste collection in QSRs and examined children's orders and consumption of meals from the standard and children's menus. Additional aims were to examine if the meals ordered met healthier standards for children's menu items and determine the accuracy of the QSR-stated energy content of foods.

Healthier Children's Meals in Restaurants: An Exploratory Study to Inform Approaches That Are Acceptable Across Stakeholders.

Objective: Assess parents', children's, and restaurant executives' perspectives on children's meals in restaurants.

Design: Cross-sectional.

Setting: Parents and children completed predominantly quantitative surveys at 4 quick- and full-service restaurant locations.

Assessing the Availability of Healthier Children's Meals at Leading Quick-Service and Full-Service Restaurants.

Objective: To compare the calorie, fat, saturated fat, and sodium content of available children's meal combinations in leading restaurants with national recommendations.

Design: Cross-sectional.

Setting: Children's menu offerings and corresponding nutrition information were collected (May, 2014) from Web sites of the top 10 quick-service (QSR) and top 10 full-service (FSR) restaurant chains that offered a children's menu and provided nutrition information.

Designing an Agent-Based Model for Childhood Obesity Interventions: A Case Study of ChildObesity180.

Complex systems modeling can provide useful insights when designing and anticipating the impact of public health interventions. We developed an agent-based, or individual-based, computation model (ABM) to aid in evaluating and refining implementation of behavior change interventions designed to increase physical activity and healthy eating and reduce unnecessary weight gain among school-aged children. The potential benefits of applying an ABM approach include estimating outcomes despite data gaps, anticipating impact among different populations or scenarios, and exploring how to expand or modify an intervention.

Orders Of Healthier Children's Items Remain High More Than Two Years After Menu Changes At A Regional Restaurant Chain.

In a previous study we showed that customers ordered healthier food following the April 2012 implementation of a healthier children's menu at Silver Diner, a regional restaurant chain. In this study we used newly available data to assess orders of children's menu items both one and two years after our last assessment. Previous assessments took place in September 2011-March 2012 and in September 2012-March 2013, before and after implementation of the new menu, respectively.

Children's perceptions of weight, obesity, nutrition, physical activity and related health and socio-behavioural factors.

Objective: Approximately one-third of children in the USA are either overweight or obese. Understanding the perceptions of children is an important factor in reversing this trend.

Design: An online survey was conducted with children to capture their perceptions of weight, overweight, nutrition, physical activity and related socio-behavioural factors.