Hunger and Obesity Understanding a Food Insecurity Paradigm: Workshop Summary (2011) / Chapter Skim
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13 Key Elements, Priorities, and Next Steps
13 Key Elements, Priorities, and Next Steps
Pages 177-188
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From page 177... ...
• Several participants affirmed that communications research is needed to uncover better ways of framing and disseminating the results of research on food insecurity and obesity. • Research on the framing of obesity and food security from an individual perspective needs to be enhanced by more research on community level research in these areas.
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From page 178... ...
Rationale for Conducting Research First, a vocal contingent of policy makers and a significant segment of the public cannot fathom how it is possible for people to be both poor and obese. This group asks, if the poor or food insecure are overweight or obese, why do they need additional food or nutrition assistance?
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From page 179... ...
"The additional re turn for the effort is probably not as worthy as it might be in pursuing some other paths in the research arena." • Many other factors besides food security mediate the relationship between access to food and obesity. These factors could jointly cause obesity and food insecurity, or they could exert causal influ ences in either direction.
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From page 180... ...
Appropriations generally come through very specific line items tied to particular programs, but as legislation at the federal and state levels is reauthorized and otherwise changed, these constraints can be lifted. A PERSPECTIVE FROM THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH SERVICE The interaction between food insecurity and obesity is one element in the larger issue of how to alleviate both.
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From page 181... ...
A Food Environment Atlas provides data at the county level on food deserts as well as what have been called "food swamps" -- areas in which large relative amounts of energy-dense snack foods inundate healthful food options (Rose et al., 2009) -- and the variety of food choices that may be available in a neighborhood.
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From page 182... ...
Some areas of consideration for inclusion in core measures are: Should marginal food security be combined with low and very low food security? Should the population of interest be below 185 percent, 200 percent, or 250 percent of the federal poverty line?
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From page 183... ...
occurs at the community and state levels, said Commander Heidi Blanck, chief of the CDC's Obesity Prevention and Control Branch. The CDC division that contains her branch funds adolescent and school health and adult and community health, with an increasing emphasis over time on the environment, policy, and systems approaches.
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From page 184... ...
Food Policy Councils and Community Food Security Coalitions Blanck included the importance of food policy councils and community food security coalitions, which are groups of advocates and stakeholders that have the potential to do the following: • Engage in discourse about meeting the needs of multiple groups including agriculture, public health workers, and lower-income individuals; • Provide technical assistance for state and local communities to think about food access and anti-hunger; and • Invest in interventions demonstrated to be effective. The Farm Bill The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is convening stakeholders to consider public health in the reauthorization of the farm bill.
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From page 185... ...
How can the problem be shifted upstream to the community factors that contribute to obesity? Communities recognize the importance of the same things researchers do in obesity prevention, including access to healthful food, safe places to play, and walkable neighborhoods.
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From page 186... ...
. I know funders are interested in this as well -- a robust, multiagency, coordinated evaluation to address this one very important issue of access to healthful food." Measuring Community Food Security In response to a question about whether the federal government intends to invest in methods to measure community food security, Blanck said that CDC is sponsoring a survey that will look at how health planners are assessing access to food and water to glean environmental measures that could augment geographical data.
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From page 187... ...
factors, it's an uphill climb unless we have research to help us reframe the discussion." Standish highlighted the importance of better understanding community food security and factors that influence communities. Edward Frongillo agreed that it is important not only to set a research agenda but to develop a communications strategy based on the findings of research.
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