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Changing the Food Environment for Obesity Prevention: Key Gaps and Future Directions

  • Economy and Environment (LM Powell, Section Editor)
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Abstract

The food environment has a great impact on the nutritional health of the population. Food environment interventions have become a popular strategy to address the obesity epidemic. However, there are still significant gaps in our understanding of the most effective strategies to modify the food environment to improve health. In this review, we examine key gaps in the food environment intervention literature, including the need for: developing appropriate formative research plans when addressing the food environment; methods for selecting intervention domains and components; incorporating food producers and distributors in intervention strategies; strengthening evaluation of environmental interventions; building the evidence base for food environment interventions in diverse settings; engaging policy makers in the process of modifying the food environment; and creating systems science models to examine the costs and benefits of a potential program or policy on the food environment prior to implementation. In addition, we outline the need for strategies for addressing these issues including conducting pilot interventions, developing additional methodologies, and embracing the use of simulation models.

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Acknowledgments

The project described was supported by Grant Number U54HD070725 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD). The project is co-funded by the NICHD and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NICHD or OBSSR.

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Elizabeth Anderson Steeves, Paula Andrea Martins, and Joel Gittelsohn declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Anderson Steeves, E., Martins, P.A. & Gittelsohn, J. Changing the Food Environment for Obesity Prevention: Key Gaps and Future Directions. Curr Obes Rep 3, 451–458 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13679-014-0120-0

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