Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior

Interview: How can parents and kids work together to reduce household food waste? Amar Laila, PhD, University of Guelph, discusses the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of a new pilot study of Weeknight Supper Savers, a whole-family food literacy intervention that teaches how to prepare, store, and eat leftovers. The tool successfully encouraged families to prepare meals together and reduced food waste.

Interview: Christine St. Pierre, MPH, RD, presents the results of a new study to determine the impact on dietary behaviors on current and former elementary school students who participated in FRESHFARM FoodPrints’ school-based gardening and food education classes over the past 15 years. Analysis revealed how this early learning positively influenced food decisions as children grew older, extending into adulthood.

Interview: Ginnefer O. Cox, PhD, RD, University of Georgia, talks about the key role peer educators of nutrition education programs play when developing and testing new recipes to help individuals make nutrition-related decisions. This new research details an underexplored testing method that can effectively evaluate recipes in the community nutrition setting without formal testing at a central location.

Interview: Kathy Hu and Alyssa M. Button, PhD, discuss findings that showed adolescents with poor adherence to the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and associated cardiometabolic risk factors continued these same patterns over the two years of the study, suggesting that the adverse effects of a poor-quality diet had already established the health risks these teenagers will face throughout life.

Interview: Meg Bruening, PhD, MPH, RD, presents this position paper that sheds light on the critical issue of food insecurity among college students. It emphasizes the importance of a systemic approach and the active involvement of students in advocating for their right to food and contributing to healthier diets for both individuals and the planet. Food and nutrition education is undoubtedly one powerful tool to drive this transformation.

Interview: Andrea Begley, DrPH, School of Population Health, Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia, details the results of a new study that found that Foodbank Western Australia’s Food Sensations for Adults (FSA) food literacy program is effective in producing positive changes across a range of food literacy and dietary behaviors in participants ages 18 and older. The results are pertinent to government policymakers in decision-making for evidence-based public health investment.

Interview: Dara Lyn LoBuono, PhD, RD, assistant professor in health and exercise science at Rowan University, talks about how to better deliver information on medical nutrition therapy for patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). The findings of a new study in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior show digital health serves as an additional health service resource, which increases the healthcare provider’s abilities to collect current visual and objective data, thereby decreasing patient and caregiver burden and medical expenses.

Interview: Lead investigator Katherine W. Bauer, PhD, highlights a new study among SNAP and WIC recipients. While households participating in multiple programs have increased food-specific purchasing power, those with both programs tend to consume higher amounts of sugar-sweetened beverages (even young children) than those participating in just one or no program. Insights can promote food security and improve diet quality, while maintaining personal choice for participants.

Interview: Lead investigator Erin McCrossan, PhD, reports the results of a new study that finds building relationships between SNAP-Ed implementers and school staff is key to increasing motivation and capacity to implement nutrition education programming within the school. SNAP-Ed implementers can play an active role in cultivating readiness, potentially impacting the schools most in need.

Interview: Lead author Noora Kanerva, PhD, discusses an in-depth study that revealed how improvements in Kenya’s economic status are linked to increasingly unhealthy dietary patterns in Kenyan youth, particularly preadolescents in Nairobi City. Dietary habits are changing from traditional staple foods toward refined grains, especially in urban environments.