Improving access to supermarkets has been shown to improve some dietary outcomes, yet there is little evidence for such effects on children. Relatedly, there is a dearth of research assessing the impact of a structural change (i.e. supermarket in a former food desert) on the home environment and its relationship with children's diet.
ResearchPosted on rand.org May 16, 2017Published in: Obesity Science & Practice, Volume 3, Issue 1 March 2017. Pages 75-82. doi:10.1002/osp4.81
Improving access to supermarkets has been shown to improve some dietary outcomes, yet there is little evidence for such effects on children. Relatedly, there is a dearth of research assessing the impact of a structural change (i.e. supermarket in a former food desert) on the home environment and its relationship with children's diet.
Assess the relative impact of the home environment on children's diet after the introduction of a new supermarket in a food desert.
Among a randomly selected cohort of households living in a food desert, parental diet was assessed before and after the opening of a full-service supermarket. The home environment and children's intake of fruits and vegetables was measured at one point — after the store's opening. Structural equation models were used to estimate the pathways between changes in parental dietary quality at follow-up and children's dietary intake through the home environment.
Parental dietary improvement after the supermarket opened was associated with having a better home environment ([Beta] = 0.45, p = 0.001) and with healthier children's dietary intake ([Beta] = 0.46, p<0.001) through higher family nutrition and physical activity scores ([Beta] = 0.25, p = 0.02).
Policy solutions designed to improve diet among low-resource communities should take into account the importance of the home environment.
Neighborhood-level policies or programs should consider the role of family nutrition and physical activity in their implementation efforts.
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