e-news
 vol. 2 (2), spring 2015
School Lunch Is Getting Healthier

80% of U.S. elementary schools offered fresh fruit for lunch most days in 2013-14, up from 61% in 2006-07. 

Availability of healthier items consistently increased in school lunches over the last eight years. Learn more about improving school nutrition trends in our research brief.

 
Self-Regulation: Marketing to Kids

214 of 407 food and beverage products approved by industry for marketing to youth have too much fat, sugar, or sodium based on federal recommendations. 

 

See what progress has been made and where room for improvement remains in the food and beverage industry's self-regulation of marketing to kids in our new study.

 
Global Honor for BTG Co-Director 

Bridging the Gap's co-director, Dr. Frank J. Chaloupka, was awarded by the American Cancer Society in March 2015 for his outstanding research contributions to tobacco control at the World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Abu Dhabi.

To see highlights from Dr. Chaloupka's decades of research on global tobacco control, visit our archive on the BTG site or his new site, tobacconomics.org.
 
 
Recreation Opportunity Inequities

Fewer public recreation facilities and programs exist in rural areas, where the risk of physical inactivity is greater.

BTG's recent brief reviews evidence of inequities in communities' access to public opportunities for physical activity by income and urbanicity. 

 
State vs. Local School Soda Policies

States that ban soda in high schools see lower soda consumption among African American students, who stand to benefit the most from school nutrition policies.

BTG found state policies were more likely than district policies to affect availability and consumption of soda in schools. Learn more about how these policies could impact health inequities in our study.
 
 


 
Bridging the Gap is a nationally recognized research program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation dedicated to improving the understanding of how policies and environmental factors influence diet, physical activity, and obesity among youth, as 
well as youth tobacco use. For more information, visit www.bridgingthegapresearch.org.