Health Food, Healthy Schools and Healthy Communities

描述（由申请人提供） 社会和建筑环境影响食物消费模式，从而影响疾病发生和公共卫生。 当环境因素使人们难以获得健康的食物选择时，就会出现健康差距。 影响饮食选择的获取因素包括健康食品的成本、可获得性和实际可获得性。 缺乏负担得起的健康食品来源的社区的居民可能会经历更高的超重和糖尿病率，这是由于新鲜水果和蔬菜以及全谷物的消费与高热量，添加脂肪和糖的食物的消费差异，以及其他营养素的低。 但是，如果社区成员积极参与制定社区营养规范和影响增加负担得起的健康食品供应的政策，这些因素造成的当地营养环境是可以改变的。 这种积极的干预有可能减少困扰低收入社区和有色人种社区的超重和糖尿病的健康差距。 该项目的目标是促进由社区推动的积极变化，改变不成比例地遭受与饮食有关的不良健康状况的学校和社区的当地营养环境。 该项目将评价这些学校和社区的准入因素;提高对营养、环境和粮食准入的认识;制定和执行干预战略;评估这些战略对环境和政策的影响。 活动包括培训低收入的非裔美国人和拉丁美洲学生、家长和居民进行社区和学校食品评估;制定适当和可行的行动计划，以解决营养不良的环境和政策问题;建立地方社区营养咨询委员会，动员各方努力推进干预战略。 项目假设是：1）通过参与社区和学校食品评估以及社区营养委员会的发展，学校和社区成员将提高对与缺乏获得促进健康的食品有关的健康差距的认识和了解;（2）提高认识和发展社区-推动环境和政策变革的战略将反过来改善营养环境，减少超重和糖尿病的风险因素。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant) The social and built environments affect food consumption patterns that influence disease occurrence and public health. Health disparities arise when environmental factors make it difficult to access healthy food choices. Access factors that influence dietary choices include the cost, availability and physical accessibility of healthy foods. Residents of neighborhoods that lack affordable sources of healthy food may experience higher rates of overweight and diabetes, resulting from differences in the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains versus foods that are high in calories, added fat, and sugars, and low in other nutrients. The local nutrition environments created by such factors can, however, be changed if community members are actively involved in shaping community nutrition norms and influencing policies that increase the availability of affordable healthy foods. Such proactive intervention has the potential to reduce the health disparities for overweight and diabetes that plague low-income communities and communities of color. The goal of the project is to facilitate positive community-driven changes in local nutrition environments in schools and communities that suffer disproportionately from diet-related poor health conditions. The project will evaluate access factors in those schools and communities; raise nutrition, environmental and food access awareness; develop and implement intervention strategies; and assess the environmental and policy impact of those strategies. Activities include the training of low-income African-American and Latino students, parents, and residents to undertake community and school food assessments; the development of appropriate and feasible action plans to address poor nutrition environments and policies; and the creation of local community nutrition advisory councils to mobilize efforts to move intervention strategies forward. The project hypotheses are: 1) through participation in community and school food assessments and the development of community nutrition councils, school and community members will have increased awareness and knowledge of the health disparities related to lack of access to health-promoting foods; and 2) increased awareness and the development of community-driven strategies for environmental and policy change will in turn lead to improved nutrition environments that reduce risk factors for overweight and diabetes.