Connect for Kids / Child Advocacy 360 / Youth Policy Action Center - Nutrition

Reducing Obesity: Policy Strategies from the Tobacco Wars

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:38:52 -0500

To combat the epidemic of obesity, lawmakers can adapt policy approaches that have substantially cut tobacco use. A 10 percent tax on fattening food, identified based on a model used by the British government to determine the foods that may not be advertised to children, would reduce consumption while raising more than $500 billion over 10 years.

A Detailed Picture of Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:58:17 -0500

Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we consider how parental education relates to four outcomes in the children's generation: education, lifetime earnings, health, and wealth. By focusing on parents' and children's ranks, we characterize relative mobility in terms of distributions of outcomes and can see patterns that even a relatively disaggregated analysis, like a quintile-based transition matrix, can obscure.

Neighborhood Factors Influence Youth Participation in Programs

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:37:21 -0500

A new Child Trends brief finds that youth who have not participated in out-of-school time programs are significantly more likely than are their participating peers to live in an unsupportive neighborhood; to spend more than two hours a day watching TV or playing video games; and to have parents who are in poor health, who don't exercise, and who have less than a high school education.

Disparities in Child Outcomes Found Among Infants

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:10:20 -0500

A new study finds disparities between poor, at-risk children and more advantaged children as early as 9 months of age - extending prior research that primarily focuses on disparities at kindergarten entry and beyond.

America 's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:05:32 -0500

A new report from the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics tracks 40 key indicators measuring children’s economic circumstances, health, physical environment and safety, family and social environment, behavior, and education.

Food Insecurity Rates Rise Steeply with Recession

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:42:01 -0500

In this brief, Children's HealthWatch finds that the prevalence of food insecurity in a five-city sample of low-income families with young children increased from 18.5 to 22.6 percent between 2007 and 2008.

The Economy Will Recover, Children Will Not:

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:36:23 -0500

Turning Point: The Long Term Effects of Recession-induced poverty

Following four cohorts of children who lived through post-war American recessions for up to twenty years of adulthood, researcher

On the Hill: “Hunger after the School Bell” as Advocates Gear Up for the Child Nutrition Act Reauthorization

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:45:12 -0500

A July 8 Congressional briefing hosted by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) and the Afterschool Alliance laid out some surprising facts and inspiring optimism about this fall’s opportunity to build a better food program for the nation’s vulnerable children. CFK has this field report.

On Capitol Hill, Witnessing the Way Policy Meets Real Families’ Lives

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:52:13 -0500

The Witness to Hunger program armed 40 mothers with video cameras and set them out to document their lives and what it takes to feed a family in tight times. “These women are the experts on what it’s like to deal with the consequences of what our lawmakers decide,” says the program’s creator Marianna Chilton. On June 2, 2009, these experts took on Capitol Hill.

Consumers Union Calling for More Robust FDA Oversight on Baby Formula, Foods

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:28:28 -0600

Consumers Union says that when traces of melamine were discovered in cookies, chocolate and infant formula in the United States the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) refused to recall the products and tried to keep quiet about its own findings.

Suspect Peanuts Sent to Schools

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:15:04 -0600

The Washington Post reports that the Peanut Corporation of America sold 32 truckloads of roasted peanuts and peanut butter to the federal government for a free-lunch program for poor children even as the company's internal tests showed that its products were contaminated with salmonella bacteria.

Helping Health Care Providers Pay Attention to Effects of Hunger

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:00:31 -0600

With the nation's third-highest hunger rate, Oregon's Childhood Hunger Initiative wants health care providers to ask themselves whether hunger could be behind some of their patients' problems.

Feed America, Stop Hunger

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 22:55:09 -0600

Feeding America, formerly Second Harvest, is urging you to contact Congress to address hunger among working families.

School Food Unwrapped: What's Available and What Our Kids Actually Are Eating

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:03:21 -0600

Higher-income fifth grade students in suburban school districts are no more likely to have access to healthy or unhealthy foods than are their lower-income, urban peers, according to a new Child Trends study.

Federal School Meal Programs in the States

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:31:18 -0600

The federal school nutrition programs are the second largest federal funding source for public schools (after Title I), but that doesn't stop schools from losing money on nutrition programs. Many districts are considering tough choices, even as more families rely on the programs.