ASU Food Policy and Environment Research Group
A collection of scholarly work created by the ASU Food Policy and Environment Research Group under the leadership of Professor Punam Ohri-Vachaspati. The group examines policies, programs, and environments that influence food consumption and physical activity behaviors and health outcomes in disadvantaged populations. We aim to improve the health of children and families through comprehensive policy and environmental approaches.
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- Creators: Hruschka, Daniel
- Creators: Kurka, Jonathan
Relationships between food and physical activity (PA) environments and children's related behaviors are complex.
Latent class analyses derived patterns from proximity to healthy and unhealthy food outlets, PA facilities and parks, and counts of residential dwellings and intersections. Regression analyses examined whether derived classes were related to food consumption, PA, and overweight among 404 low-income children.
Compared to children living in Low PA-Low Food environments, children in High Intersection&Parks-Moderate Density&Food, and High Density-Low Parks-High Food environments, had significantly greater sugar-sweetened beverage consumption (ps<0.01) and overweight/obesity (ps<0.001). Children in the High Density-Low Parks-High Food environments were more likely to walk to destinations (p = 0.01)
Recognizing and leveraging beneficial aspects of neighborhood patterns may be more effective at positively influencing children's eating and PA behaviors compared to isolating individual aspects of the built environment.
Background
The transition from the home to college is a phase in which emerging adults shift toward more unhealthy eating and physical activity patterns, higher body mass indices, thus increasing risk of overweight/obesity. Currently, little is understood about how changing friendship networks shape weight gain behaviors. This paper describes the recruitment, data collection, and data analytic protocols for the SPARC (Social impact of Physical Activity and nutRition in College) study, a longitudinal examination of the mechanisms by which friends and friendship networks influence nutrition and physical activity behaviors and weight gain in the transition to college life.
Methods
The SPARC study aims to follow 1450 university freshmen from a large university over an academic year, collecting data on multiple aspects of friends and friendship networks. Integrating multiple types of data related to student lives, ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) are administered via a cell phone application, devilSPARC. EMAs collected in four 1-week periods (a total of 4 EMA waves) are integrated with linked data from web-based surveys and anthropometric measurements conducted at four times points (for a total of eight data collection periods including EMAs, separated by ~1 month). University databases will provide student card data, allowing integration of both time-dated data on food purchasing, use of physical activity venues, and geographical information system (GIS) locations of these activities relative to other students in their social networks.
Discussion
Findings are intended to guide the development of more effective interventions to enhance behaviors among college students that protect against weight gain during college.