Environmental and societal factors affect food choice and physical activity: Rationale, influences, and leverage points

Dietary and physical activity behaviors that affect health are influenced by a wide variety of forces; changes in these behaviors require interventions and commitment to action at multiple levels.l.2 Education-based obesity-prevention strategies (e.g., mass-media promotion of healthy foods and promotion of healthy physical activity habits through schools) are viewed as the most useful and the most feasible to im~lementIm.~p licit in these strategies is the focus on the individual? Education-based strategies have met with limited long-term success in changing behavior: however, perhaps owing to a general lack of supporting environmental modifications. There is increasing recognition of the importance of the environment in shaping behavior, yet strategies that focus on changing environmental factors are much less familiar, and may therefore require partnerships with relevant sectors outside traditional health domains. As described in greater detail by Economos et al.: partnerships among researchers, educators, government, and industry have demonstrated success in smoking reduction at the population level. Interventions such as taxation and advertisement regulations have been instrumental in promoting smoking cessation in the United States and are used by agriculture and agribusiness interests to promote specific food consumption patterns. Similar models of collaborations or interventions may be successful in changing food intake and physical activity, and may potentially result in such desirable outcomes as prevention and reduction of obesity.6 It is important to appreciate the interaction among multiple environmental factors and that complex behavior changes are dependent on different influences at different levels. In Working Group 11, we took on the task of identifying broader contextual, environmental, societal, and policy variables that may improve our understanding of people's eating and physical activity behaviors and may lead to new directions for influencing shifts in behavior. Ecologic models of behavior, and most health promotion models, specify that health behaviors be influenced by biologic, demographic, psychological, sociaYcultura1, environmental, and policy variables. However, the research base that identifies specific important environmental and policy variables is very limited.'.""' Nevertheless, there are several reasons that support the need to identify environmental and policy influences on physical activity and eating behaviors

Food consumption and diet quality choices of Roma in Romania: a counterfactual analysis

This paper analyses the diet quality aspect of food security of Roma in Romania. We employed a modified Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique using Household Budget Survey data for the period 2004–2011. The estimates suggest that Roma have inferior diet diversity compared to the non-Roma. Around one-third of the diet diversity gap is explained by the differences in observed socio-economic factors, whereas the remaining part of the gap is attributed to unobserved factors. We argue that the unexplained component of the diet diversity gap is caused by the discrimination of the Roma on the labour market and by their specific informal institutions

Using Social Marketing to Understand the Family Dinner with Working Mothers.

The family dinner is a valued tradition that affords opportunities for social interaction and attachment, as well as sharing events of the day, role modeling, connectedness, and problem solving. Guided by the social-marketing framework, this study explored factors associated with the frequency of the family dinner among working mothers with children ages 8-11 years. A qualitative design was used, employing focus groups and Atlas-ti software for thematic analysis. Lack of time, cost, and exhaustion/lack of energy emerged as barriers. Working mothers indicated that a youth-based organization operating as a community partner could increase the frequency of the family dinner by helping with homework completion during after-school care, thereby providing mothers with the time necessary to prepare dinner. This research identified both community partners and working mothers as valued resources for prevention strategies. Interventions developed to increase family dinner frequency should emphasize the perceived value while decreasing the costs/barriers

Multi-Level Determinants of Food Insecurity among Racially and Ethnically Diverse College Students

Compared with the general population, the prevalence of food insecurity (FI) is higher among college students. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated FI disparities and highlighted the need for further research to better understand and address FI in this population. Although race and ethnicity are two of the strongest predictors of FI among college students, little research is available on the determinants of FI among racial/ethnic minority college students. A cross-sectional study (n = 588) based on the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities research framework was examined to identify population-specific determinants of FI among racially/ethnically diverse college students through the assessment of multiple domains (behavioral, environmental, socio-cultural) and levels of influence (individual, interpersonal, and community levels). Discrimination was the sole predictor of FI for non-Hispanic Black students. Coping mechanisms for FI (savings, reduced intake) and body mass index (BMI) were predictors of FI for Hispanic and non-Hispanic White students. Additionally, decreased holistic support from faculty and staff was also observed as a predictor of FI in Hispanic students. Implications include the need for further research and the development of multi-level, tailored interventions to address FI among college students with the goal of decreasing disparities