Making the Connection: Linking Policies that Prevent Hunger and Childhood Obesity

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In the past, food insecurity and obesity were viewed as separate public health problems, yet research now shows that people with unreliable access to food are also more likely to be obese.

A new brief, Making the Connection: Linking Policies that Prevent Hunger and Childhood Obesity, released by Leadership for Healthy Communities, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, provides policymakers seeking to address hunger in their communities with policy options that can also contribute significantly to reversing the childhood obesity epidemic.

Some of the policy strategies outlined in the brief include:

• Establishing healthy food financing initiatives to increase access to nutritious foods;
• Supporting farm-to-institution, farm-to-school and school garden programs;
• Increasing free and reduced-price school meals; and
• Partnering with the private sector to increase the value of federal nutrition assistance benefits for healthful foods through double-coupon initiatives.

Read more here.