Disparities in the Relationship Between the School Nutrition Environment and Childhood Obesity

 描述（由申请人提供）：儿童肥胖症的患病率在过去三十年中增加了两倍，少数民族和低收入儿童受到严重影响。改善学校营养环境有可能惠及弱势儿童，但人们对学校营养环境对预防肥胖和减少差距的影响知之甚少。了解学校营养环境与儿童肥胖的关系对于改善饮食行为的方法很重要，这些饮食行为可能会预防肥胖和肥胖相关的合并症，如高脂血症和糖尿病。我正在追求K 01指导研究科学家发展奖，以填补学校营养，健康差距和纵向统计方法领域的关键培训空白。我的职业目标是制定，实施，评估和传播以学校为基础的营养干预措施，以促进营养健康，减少弱势群体中肥胖的风险。我详细的培训计划包括在加州大学旧金山分校和加州大学伯克利分校的正式课程，会议，研讨会，阅读和研究学徒。通过拟议的一系列研究，我将确定哪些学校营养计划和政策与超重和肥胖有关，并研究在NIH资助的（NHLBI领导的）健康社区研究中，获得的差异如何成为肥胖模式的基础。我的主要假设是，与低强度的学校营养环境相比，通过持续时间、覆盖范围和行为策略来定义的改善学校营养环境的高强度努力将使儿童的体重更健康，这将因收入和种族/民族而异。在准备提交R 01拨款申请来检验这一假设时，我将首先在对不同社区的小学和中学进行的国家评估中，确定10年内学校营养计划和政策强度的趋势。其次，我将研究目前的学校营养环境和儿童的体重状况之间的关联，收入和种族/民族。最后，我将确定一个支持性的学校营养环境和学校营养教育的结合是否与改善体重状况有关。这些发现将是创新的，因为它将是确定 哪些学校营养计划和政策在各种社会经济因素中对预防肥胖最有效，以更好地为公共卫生实践提供信息。拟议的培训计划和一系列研究将为我提供一套成功竞争R 01资金所需的技能和专业知识，并作为以学校为基础的干预措施领域的领导者，以预防儿童肥胖和减少健康差距。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The prevalence of childhood obesity has tripled over the last three decades, and ethnic minority and low- income children are disproportionally affected. Improving the school nutrition environment has the potential to reach disadvantaged children, yet little is known about the impact of the school nutrition environment on preventing obesity and reducing disparities. Understanding the relationship of the school nutrition environment to child obesity is important for addressing ways to improve dietary behaviors that are likely to prevent obesity and obesity-related co-morbidities such as hyperlipidemia and diabetes. I am pursuing a K01 Mentored Research Scientist Development Award to fill critical training gaps in the areas of school nutrition, health disparities, and longitudinal statistical methods. My career goal is to develop, implement, evaluate, and disseminate school-based nutrition interventions to promote nutritional health and reduce the risk of obesity within vulnerable populations. My detailed training plan includes formal coursework at UCSF and UC Berkeley, meetings, seminars, readings, and research apprenticeships. Through the proposed series of studies, I will determine which school nutrition programs and policies are associated with overweight and obesity and examine how disparities in access might underlie obesity patterns within the NIH-funded (NHLBI-led) Healthy Communities Study. My primary hypothesis is that higher intensity efforts to improve school nutrition environments, defined by duration, reach, and behavioral strategy, will have healthier weight children compared to lower intensity school nutrition environments, and this will differ by income and race/ethnicity. In preparation fo submitting an R01 grant application to test this hypothesis, I will first identify trends in the intensity of school nutrition programs and policies over a 10-year period in a national evaluation of elementary and middle schools in diverse communities. Second, I will examine the associations between the current school nutrition environment and children's weight status by income and race/ethnicity. Finally, I will determine whether the combination of a supportive school nutrition environment and school nutrition education is associated with improved weight status. These findings will be innovative because it will be the first critical step in identifying which school nutrition programs and policies are most effective for obesity prevention across a diverse set of socioeconomic factors to better inform public health practice. The proposed training plan and series of studies will provide me with a set of skills and expertise needed to successfully compete for R01 funding and to serve as a leader in the field of school-based interventions to prevent childhood obesity and reduce health disparities.