This well-documented obesity prevention program pilot for low-income families in Carrboro NC (USA) featured three main components. Weekly work sessions in a community garden provided gardening instruction and practice opportunities and a familiarity with the vegetables. A seven-week workshop series covered cooking and nutrition. Social activities and events built and maintained interest in the garden and fostered interaction between garden members. By the end of their participation in the program, 17% (n=6, p<0.004) of obese or overweight children had improved their BMI classification and 100% of the children with a BMI classification of normal had maintained that BMI classification.
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In 2005, The Humane Society of the United States (the HSUS) hatched a plan to replace conventionally produced eggs served on college campuses with cage-free alternatives, by appealing to students’ interest in social issues and addressing administrators’ practical concerns. Now led by The Humane League (THL) in the United States and by other organizations internationally, the campaign has resulted in millions of eggs now sourced from cage-free rather than “factory farming” facilities. A step-by-step playbook showing how to achieve campus-wide support and engage dining service managers guides student leaders implementing the campaign at their schools.
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Fork it Over! is a peer-to-peer initiative that helps food businesses in Portland Oregon to donate surplus prepared, perishable foods that have not been served, by showing that it is safe, simple and the right thing to do. It recruits food businesses to make written, public commitments to donate food regularly, reinforces and publicizes those commitments, and prompts action at the moment when donations are available. It also leverages partnership support from key industry leaders and associations to reinforce the social and cultural value of food donation, and provides regular reinforcement for participating through free advertising.
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This award-winning program was established to help disadvantaged women give birth to babies of healthy weight, by providing nutritional counselling and support to expectant mothers at risk.
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This open-access study found that the built environment, but not social and economic environments, was a strong predictor of adolescents' BMI, overweight or obesity status, and eating behaviors.
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This online kit includes social media messages, shareable graphics and videos.
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Data-guided, supermarket-based, dietary interventions and modern online shopping tools can improve diets. This article discusses the results of a three-month randomized field trial that promoted a hypertension-reducing diet. Adherence to the diet increased 3.8 - 4.7 times more for the intervention groups compared with the control.
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The experience of three American cities that implemented sugar-sweetened beverage taxes, indicates that such taxes can lead to public health improvements, with improvements concentrated among female and non-white respondents.
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This study suggests that eco-labelling and/or social nudges can reduce meat consumption and meet corresponding global climate change targets.
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The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends digital health and telephone interventions that are implemented in community settings and focus on improving healthy eating and physical activity among adults interested in improving these behaviors. Sufficient evidence of effectiveness shows the effectiveness of these interventions. The evidence also indicates associated small reductions in weight-related outcomes and clinical outcomes (i.e., diastolic blood pressure, triglycerides, total cholesterol, and low-density lipoproteins). CPSTF also recommends digital health and telephone interventions to increase healthy eating and physical activity among receptive adults in worksite and higher education settings. This report summarizes the effect sizes for 11 outcomes classified as physical activity, dietary, weight-related, and clinical outcomes from a review of 31 studies.
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This toolkit provides a practical, step-by-step methodology for designing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating Social and Behavioural Change Communications (SBCC) initiatives to prevent overweight in children. Its review of covers found that interpersonal and multi-component communications had the greatest impact and strength of evidence for maternal nutrition, breastfeeding, and complementary feeding. Only multi-component communications had the greatest impact and strength of evidence on child / adolescent diet and physical activity.
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Knowledge acquisition and nutrition assessment skills alone have not resulted in changes in diet among college students. An intervention that used guided goal setting and food challenges combined with video instruction helped build self-efficacy and increased consumption of fruits and vegetables. The intervention was successful in both a traditional, in-person classroom and an online course delivery format.
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This toolkit guides the user through the process of conducting an evaluation of any nutrition program that includes a social and behavior change component, whether it is focused on one component of nutrition (e.g., complementary feeding) or is a multi-sectoral nutrition program (spanning food and health systems).
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This scientific statement from the American Heart Association presents evidence of effective behavioral intervention programs that are feasible for adoption in primary care settings for cardiovascular disease prevention and risk management in middle-aged and older adults. It also highlights resources, practical approaches to appropriately engage and refer patients to these programs, and opportunities to enhance them.
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This open-access, controlled study looked at the impacts of restricting junk food ads on the busses, subway cars, stops and stations in London, UK. It estimated a direct reduction in obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and associated health cost savings.
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Features systematic reviews that help people make well-informed decisions about the effects of interventions in crime and social justice, disability, nutrition, and social welfare.
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When healthier menu options were placed first on an online menu, they were chosen more often. However, the order of pacement had no effect with physical (rather than online) menus.
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Shifting dietary choices towards vegetarian food is an urgent challenge given the environmental impact of livestock production and imminent need to reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. An online randomized control trial found that meat eaters were significantly more likely to choose a vegetarian meal when presented with a menu with 75% vegetarian items, but not when half (50%) were vegetarian. It is thought that availability may have increased vegetarian food choice by implicitly suggesting behavioral norms or by providing consumers with a wider range of desirable options.
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The Social Norms Atlas is a collective effort led by the Social Norms Learning Collaborative to foster awareness, understanding, and the ability to address a variety of social norms as they relate to development outcomes.
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