Healthy Communities and Behavior Change
Local Plates, Global Minds: Challenges and Successes in Local Food Procurement
January 13, 2022
The Local Plates, Global Minds team, based at the Friedman School, has spent nearly three years working with the Boston Public School community to assess if changes in food procurement improve the nutritional quality and environmental sustainability of menus, and to learn about the trials and successes of increasing local food procurement for school lunches.
Here, members of the research team, Rachel Kinney and Alexandra Stern, provide an overview of the project's context, challenges and outcomes. 
Ultraprocessed Foods Now Comprise 2/3 of Calories in Children and Teen Diets
August 30, 2021
New study in JAMA also found kids and teens eat less unprocessed and minimally processed foods
Kurt Hager Receives Horowitz Foundation Grant Award
July 28, 2021
The Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy has selected 25 scholars to receive grants for research in the social sciences. Kurt Hager, a PhD student in our Food and Nutrition Policy and Programs program, will research the cost-effectiveness of expanding medically tailored meal coverage for individuals with Diet-Sensitive disease. 
ASN 2021 - Nutrition Online
June 9, 2021
This year's ASN meeting is all-virtual, but there are plenty of opportunities to participate in live events throughout the week. The Friedman School and the Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (JMHNRCA) are representing Tufts University with panels, posters, and plenty of awards for their outstanding work.
We've pulled out some highlights for the week, but remember to check out the full schedule for all sessions and events. 
Congrats to Our 2021 Faculty Award Winners
May 11, 2021
We are delighted to announce the new winners of the Friedman School’s two annual faculty awards. We wish to thank the students, faculty and staff who provided thoughtful nominations, and to also thank the committees who reviewed nominations and made the difficult choice of selecting only one winner for each of our two faculty awards. 
20 Years of the American Diet: Dark Clouds, Silver Linings
April 13, 2021
"We found that foods eaten from fast-food or fast-casual restaurants offered the worst nutrition – 85% of foods eaten by children at these establishments, and 70% by adults, were of poor quality. At full-service restaurants and work-site cafeterias, about half the foods eaten were of poor quality. At grocery stores, we found some improvement from 2003 to 2018. The percentage of poor-quality foods eaten from grocery stores dropped from 40% to 33% for adults, and 53% to 45% for children." 
Local Plates, Global Minds
March 23, 2021
Can local food procurement in schools change the nutritional quality and environmental impacts of lunch menus?
Breaking Down Barriers With Innovative Telehealth Interventions
March 2, 2021
The USDA/Tufts Telehealth Intervention Strategies for WIC (THIS-WIC) has selected seven WIC State Agencies (SAs) to receive awards up to $1,000,000 each to implement novel telehealth interventions in delivery of USDA’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). 
Visualizing Community Health
February 25, 2021
Tufts recently held a week-long virtual hackathon where students turned data into compelling visualizations to help communities improve health.
The Pandemic and Childhood Weight Gain
January 5, 2021
There’s plenty of talk of the COVID 20—meaning the extra weight that adults are putting on during the pandemic. But what about children?
Even before the pandemic, the percentage of American children who have overweight or obesity—defined as body mass index (BMI) being in the 85th to 95th percentiles for children of the same age and sex—was startlingly high, and early evidence is suggesting the pandemic may make matters even worse.