UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health

The objective of this review was to summarize the evidence for the impact of Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) on children’s diet quality, weight status, food insecurity, and cognitive development. Nineteen articles were reviewed, most of which had been published since 2012. Seventeen used cross-sectional designs. Twelve evaluated foods and beverages served; 4 evaluated dietary intake; 4 evaluated the child care nutrition environment; 2 evaluated food insecurity, 1 evaluated weight status; none evaluated cognitive outcomes. Studies typically found either a small beneficial association with CACFP or no significant association.

Full citation: Kenney E. L., Tucker, K., Plummer, R. S., Mita, C., & Andreyeva, T. (2023). The Child and Adult Care Food Program and young children’s health: a systematic review. Nutrition Reviews, nuad016. https://doi.org/10.1093/nutrit/nuad016

Little is known about the prevalence of negative weight-biased attitudes among Dutch healthcare professionals (HCPs) when treating children and adolescents with obesity and whether interdisciplinary differences are present. Accordingly, we asked 555 Dutch HCPs that treat pediatric patients with obesity to complete a validated 22-item self-report questionnaire about their weight-biased attitudes. HCPs from all disciplines reported to experience negative weight-biased attitudes among themselves. Participants from all groups perceived weight bias expressed by their colleagues, toward children with obesity.

Full citation: van der Voorn, B., Camfferman, R., Seidell, J.C., Puhl, R.M., & Halberstadt, J. (2023) Weight-biased Attitudes about pediatric patients with obesity in Dutch health care professionals from seven different professions. Journal of Child Health Care. https://doi.org/10.1177/13674935221133953

Researchers conducted focus groups in one low-income community to assess caregivers’ familiarity, understanding and attitudes regarding healthy drink and snack recommendations for toddlers. A convenience sample of 24 caregivers of toddlers (12–36 months) participated. Results showed most participants were familiar with recommendations, but many were surprised that some drinks and snack foods are not recommended, and most believed recommendations were not realistic. Common barriers to adhering to recommendations included beliefs about their child’s innate preferences, family modeling and others’ provision of drinks and snacks in and outside the home.

Full citation: Harris, J. L., Romo-Palafox, M. J., Gershman, H., Kagan, I., & Duffy, V. (2023). Healthy Snacks and Drinks for Toddlers: A Qualitative Study of Caregivers’ Understanding of Expert Recommendations and Perceived Barriers to Adherence. Nutrients, 15(4), 1006. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15041006

Candy, sweet and salty snacks, sugary drinks, and ice cream brands frequently appear in videos posted by top child-influencers on “made-for-kids” YouTube channels, according to a new paper from researchers at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health at the University of Connecticut. Video views for the 13 channels analyzed in this study exceeded 155 billion as of June 2020. 

The study’s findings, published in Pediatric Obesity, found that 38% of child-influencer videos featured branded food, beverage, or restaurant products, which appeared 4 times per video on average. Candy brands appeared most often (42% of brand appearances), followed by sweet and salty snacks, sugary drinks and ice cream (32% combined). Healthy branded products, such as bottled water, plain milk, or fruit, made up just 9% of food brand appearances. 

Frequent and widespread exposure to food marketing increases children’s preferences, purchase requests, attitudes, and consumption of the mostly nutrient-poor, energy-dense products promoted. Food and beverage companies have extended their reach to young people by marketing on digital media where children as young as age 3 increasingly spend their time. Viewing YouTube videos is one of the most popular online activities among children ages 6–8, and food marketing to children on YouTube, including advertisements, child-influencer endorsements, and branded products placed within videos, raises numerous concerns among child health experts.

Full citation: Fleming-Milici, F, Phaneuf, L, Harris, J. Prevalence of food and beverage brands in “made-for-kids” child-influencer YouTube videos: 2019–2020. Pediatric Obesity. 2023;e13008. doi:10.1111/ijpo.13008

This longitudinal study examined changes in the number quick-service restaurants (QSRs) between the 2006-2007 and 2017-2018 school years using data from National Center for Education Statistics, Infogroup US Historical Business Data, and the US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. Results showed there were more QSRs near schools with a high percentage of poverty (12%), and near schools with high school students with the highest population of Black or African American (16%) and Hispanic or Latino (18%) students. By 2018, the percent of QSRs within 400m of all public schools increased to 12%. The increase over time was greater near schools with a high percentage of poverty (16%) and near schools with high school students with the highest population of Black or African American students (22%) and Hispanic or Latino (23%) students.

Full citation: Olarte DA, Petimar J, James P, Stowers KC, Cash SB, Rimm EB, Economos CD, Blossom JC, Rohmann M, Chen Y, Deo R, Cohen JFW, Trends in quick-service restaurants near public schools in the United States: Differences by community, school and student characteristics, Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (2023), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jand.2023.01.016.

Critical weight communication between parents and their adolescent children is prevalent and harmful. However, research on adolescent perspectives about parental weight communication is limited. The present mixed-methods study aimed to address this gap using inductive thematic analysis of 1743 adolescents’ (Mage=14.61 years, SDage=2.48) preferences regarding parental weight communication in response to an open-ended prompt, and quantitative analyses to examine age, gender, race/ethnicity, and weight-related differences in subthemes. We identified 15 subthemes across these categories—the endorsement of which often varied by adolescents’ demographic and anthropometric characteristics. Across most subthemes, adolescents described adverse responses (e.g., feeling insecure, embarrassed, or hurt) when parents discussed their weight in non-preferred ways.

Full citation: Lawrence, S. E., Lessard, L. M., Puhl, R. M., Foster, G. D., & Cardel, M. I. (2023). “Look beyond the weight and accept me”: Adolescent perspectives on parental weight communication. Body Image, 45, 11-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2023.01.006

In this paper, we aim to confirm the existence of the selective daily mobility bias (SDMB) by systematically exploring the large-scale GPS-based restaurant-visit patterns in the Greater Harford region, Connecticut. Our primary results demonstrate that (1) most restaurant customers originate from areas outside of the census tract where the restaurant is located, and (2) restaurants located in socially vulnerable areas attract more customers in total, more customers from local areas, and more customers from other socially vulnerable areas. These results confirm the relevance of the SDMB to the community food environment, and suggest ways that the SDMB can be moderated by an uneven socio-economic landscape.

Full citation: Jin, A., Chen, X., Huang, X., Li, Z., Caspi, C. E., & Xu, R. (2023). Selective Daily Mobility Bias in the Community Food Environment: Case Study of Greater Hartford, Connecticut. Nutrients, 15(2), 404. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15020404

A new investigation by ad watchdog TINA.org and the UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy & Health has found that “lifestyle sports nutrition brand” Ghost is unfairly and deceptively marketing adult energy drinks and supplements to children in violation of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) law. The groups have filed a complaint with the regulators urging the agencies to take enforcement action.

TINA.org and the Rudd Center’s investigation found that Ghost is using candy brands popular among children and young teens, including Swedish Fish, Bubblicious, Sour Patch Kids and Warheads, to flavor and package energy drinks and supplements that are only intended for adults. Mondelez International Inc. and Impact Confections, makers of the candies, were also notified of the findings.

An Internet sample of 408 US parents (64% mothers; 34% White, 33% Black, and 32% Hispanic/Latinx) completed a survey to quantitatively examine parental reasons for engaging in and avoiding weight talk. Parents cited concern for their child’s health as a primary reason for weight talk, whereas avoidance stemmed from not wanting their child to be weight-obsessed. White and Hispanic vs. Black parents, and parents with experienced weight stigma, were more likely to cite personal struggles with body weight as reasons to both engage in and avoid weight talk. Fathers vs. mothers were more likely to cite protecting their child from weight-based bullying as a reason for weight talk. Understanding these parental motivations can inform health interventions.

Full citation: Pudney, E. V., Puhl, R. M., Halgunseth, L. C., & Schwartz, M. B. (2022). Parental reasons for engaging in or avoiding weight talk with children. Childhood Obesity. http://doi.org/10.1089/chi.2022.0173