Changing How America Eats: Transforming Individuals & Communities
Abstract
Policy question: What are the challenges and promises of current efforts to promote
healthier eating, and what can AGree do to help advance practical and successful strategies
in the future?
The importance of a healthy diet cannot be overstated. Research now links poor diet
to a number of deadly—and expensive—health outcomes including obesity, chronic disease,
and even some forms of cancer. Despite the well-documented risk associated with an
unhealthy diet, millions of Americans fail to meet basic nutrition standards. Instead
of consuming reasonable amounts of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, many Americans
over consume sugary drinks and processed foods loaded with added fat and salt. The
results have been disastrous. Obesity rates, premature deaths, and health care costs
are rising. While personal responsibility over one’s diet is a key factor in eating
well, there are also four key obstacles that often prevent or hinder individual and
community efforts to improve nutrition. These obstacles include:
• Availability – Many Americans live in communities where fruits, vegetables, whole
grains, and low-fat milk are not available.
• Affordability – Healthier foods can be more expensive than many energy-dense foods
with added sugars, salt, and saturated fats.
• Cultural and Familial Preferences – Cultural and familial preferences often negatively
affect food choices.
• Education – Individuals do not have clear information and easy-to-follow instructions
to help make informed nutrition and meal choices.
These challenges are further compounded by the reality that unhealthy foods often
taste better, and are more convenient to prepare or pick-up. Successful interventions
to encourage healthy eating will require creative problem solving and significant
support from stakeholders across the public, private and nonprofit sectors.
Efforts to encourage Americans and their families to maintain a healthy diet can be
broadly categorized into two distinct missions: creating opportunities for change
and implementing theories of change. There are many public, private, and nonprofit
actors and organizations working to create opportunities to implement healthy eating
inventions, and then also following through on those opportunities to deliver a range
of services and programs that help individuals and communities at the local level
overcome barriers to healthy eating. AGree is in a unique position to help advance
these goals. Specifically, AGree should:
Support research evaluating the effectiveness of comprehensive community-based interventions
to help policymakers and nonprofits advocate for and implement the most effective
policies and interventions to promote healthy eating.
Work with relevant stakeholders to develop a comprehensive healthy eating policy platform
that represents the interests of stakeholders and reflects current knowledge of the
best policies and practices to encourage healthy eating among all Americans.
Influencing individual behavior to increase the consumption of healthier foods is
a complex endeavor. As the approaches discussed in this analysis will demonstrate,
creating long-lasting change in the American diet will require a variety of strategies,
leaders, funding sources, and partnerships at every level—federal, state, and local—working
to change the default behavior of both individuals and their larger communities through
advocacy and action.
Through advocacy efforts, many stakeholders are working to establish or protect funding
streams, regulations, or legislatively mandated policy goals. These organizations
are using coalition building, legislative advocacy, and grassroots lobbying to achieve
these goals. On the ground, policymakers are utilizing two basic theories of change
to address poor nutrition: targeted intervention and community transformation. Targeted
interventions identify a specific barrier that prevents or hampers an individual’s
ability or motivation to maintain a healthy diet. A community transformation approach
focuses on addressing multiple barriers within a community, and transforming that
community to make it easier to maintain a well-balanced diet.
This report contains an analysis of current efforts to both create opportunities for
change and take advantage of those opportunities. Different stakeholders bring a
variety of resources and perspectives to the effort. These same stakeholders also
face unique constraints that affect their ability in both the programmatic and advocacy
arenas. This report’s analysis will explore how different stakeholders are working
with policymakers to advance smart nutrition policies and implement promising healthy
eating interventions on the ground. The goal is to provide AGree with a deeper understanding
of the current political, fiscal, and policy environment, and offer recommendations
on how the organization can best use its talents and resources to have a long-lasting
impact on nutrition and food policy in the United States.
Type
Master's projectDepartment
The Sanford School of Public PolicySubject
NutritionPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/5173Citation
Klimczak, Kate (2012). Changing How America Eats: Transforming Individuals & Communities. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/5173.More Info
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