BACKGROUND The school food environment is important to target as less healthful food and beverages are widely available at schools. This study examined whether the availability of specific food/beverage items was associated with a number of school environmental factors. METHODS Principals from elementary (n=369) and middle/high schools (n=118) in British Columbia (BC), Canada completed a surv...

BACKGROUND In-store availability of healthy and unhealthy foods may influence consumer purchases. Methods used to measure food availability, however, vary widely. A simple, valid, and reliable indicator to collect comparable data on in-store food availability is needed. METHODS Cumulative linear shelf length of and variety within 22 healthy and 28 unhealthy food groups, determined based on a ...

BACKGROUND Central America has undergone extensive trade liberalization over the past two decades, and has recently signed a Free Trade Agreement with the United States. The region is also experiencing a dual burden of malnutrition with the growth of dietary patterns associated with the global 'nutrition transition'. This study describes the relationship between trade liberalization policies an...

In recent years, research and public policy attention has increasingly focused on understanding whether modifiable aspects of the local food environment - the types and composition of food outlets families have proximate access to - are drivers of and potential solutions to the problem of childhood obesity in the United States. Given that much of the earlier published research has documented gr...

Research on neighborhood food access has focused on documenting disparities in the food environment and on assessing the links between the environment and consumption. Relatively few studies have combined in-store food availability measures with geographic mapping of stores. We review research that has used these multi-dimensional measures of access to explore the links between the neighborhood...

1. Environmental conditions in the present, more recent past and during the juvenile stage can have significant effects on adult performance and population dynamics, but their relative importance and potential interactions remain unexplored. 2. We examined the influence of food availability at the time of sampling, 2 months prior and during the juvenile stage on adult somatic growth rates in wi...

BACKGROUND The Bolsa Família Program was created in Brazil in 2003, by the joint of different social programs aimed at poor or very poor families with focus on income transfer to promote immediate poverty relief, conditionalities and complementary programs. Given the contributions of conditional cash transfer programs to poverty alleviation and their potential effects on nutrition and health, t...

BACKGROUND Differential access to healthy foods may contribute to racial and economic health disparities. The availability of healthy foods has rarely been directly measured in a systematic fashion. This study examines the associations among the availability of healthy foods and racial and income neighborhood composition. METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2006 to determine diff...

In many organisms, food availability is a proximate cue that synchronizes seasonal development of the reproductive system with optimal environmental conditions. Growth of the gonads and secondary sexual characteristics is orchestrated by the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis. However, our understanding of the physiological mechanisms by which food availability modulates activity of the ...