Results from election night show that three California cities in the Bay Area passed a penny-per-ounce tax on sugar sweetened beverages with a majority of votes by their citizens, and Boulder, Colorado passed a 2-cents-per-ounce tax on sugary beverages. Our GFRP Team is collaborating with the Public Health Institute to evaluate the effects of the […]
Study by Jen Poti finds differences in household purchases of highly processed foods
A newly published study by Dr. Jen Poti found that African-American and Hispanic households purchased less of highly processed foods when compared to White households. Dr. Poti discussed the findings in a press release from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health: “Our findings indicate that purchases of highly processed foods were lower among […]
Evaluation of Mexico’s Tax on Nonessential Energy-Dense Foods shows Decline in Purchases
A new study done with collaboration between Global Food Research Program at UNC & Mexico’s National Institute of Public Health (INSP) has found that after the ‘junk food tax’ was enacted in Mexico in January 2014 household purchases of the taxed food items decreased. There was a 5.1% decrease in amount of taxed foods in […]
Ingredients: Added Sugars & Low-Calorie Sweeteners
Scientific evidence, expert groups, and the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines recommend decreasing caloric intake from added sugars. The recently announced update of the Nutrition Facts Panel from the FDA means that food labels will be required to report grams of added sugars in foods in the future. Even though 75% of packaged foods purchased in the […]
Popkin Commentary on Philly.com
A commentary by Professor Barry Popkin was published online by Philly.com (the online site for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News). Dr. Popkin explains how the tax will affect individuals across the income divide, and answers whether the tax will be effectively “regressive”: The beverage industry and the few progressives who align with it call these […]
Barry Popkin featured on Policy 360 podcast
Barry Popkin was featured on two episodes of the Policy 360 podcast with Kelly Brownell from Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy this month. Listen to Popkin & Brownell discuss the history, rationale, best options, and successes of soda taxes in Episode 13. Listen to their discussion of the Nutrition Transition over time and the […]
Is the global diet getting sweeter?
A Thought Leader interview on News Medical with Barry Popkin features information about sweeteners in processed foods, regulatory efforts and initiatives, and predictions for the future of food in our world. What do you think the future holds for the global diet? There’s two issues here. The current future, the way the global diet’s going […]
Study finds Mexico’s sugar-sweetened beverage tax reduced purchases of sugary drinks
The first comprehensive peer reviewed study to examine the immediate effects of Mexico’s new tax on sugar sweetened beverages was published in The BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) in January 2016. The full study is available online. Researchers from the Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública (INSP), the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of […]
Guardian: Americans cutting calorie intake but junk food proves a hard habit to kick
A new article in The Guardian, titled Americans cutting calorie intake but junk food proves a hard habit to kick, features UNCFRP research from a January article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and commentary by Dr. Barry Popkin. The downturn in calorie intake is not so much a watershed in the fight against obesity […]
NYTimes quotes Dr. Popkin in ‘Americans Are Finally Eating Less’
UNCFRP research and comments by Dr. Barry Popkin are featured in the New York Times story by Margot Sanger-Katz, Americans Are Finally Eating Less, published July 24, 2015. The article discusses the gradual decline of calories eaten by Americans over the past several years: There is no perfect way to measure American calorie consumption. But three […]
Taxes may discourage purchase of sugared & high-fat beverages in US households with young children
A new study by Christopher N. Ford, PhD, found that a tax on beverages high in sugar and/or fat may be associated with favorable shifts in food and beverage purchases among households in the United States with a preschool child. A press release by the Gillings School of Global Public Health featured Ford’s research: Researchers […]
Purchases of taxed beverages decline in Mexico after excise tax takes effect
The UNC Food Research Program and the Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública have estimated changes in household purchases of beverages over the complete year of 2014, since the one peso per liter excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages took effect (January 1, 2014).The tax of approximately 10 percent applies to nondairy and non-alcoholic beverages with added […]
Poti: Processed Foods Account for >75% of Calories Purchased from US Grocery Stores
A study by Jennifer Poti found that >75% of the foods Americans purchased from grocery stores is moderately or highly processed, as reported by TIME on May 21, 2015. As much as Americans like to pretend to worship at the altar of kale, many of us are cheating with chips, a new study suggests. We like junk […]
Study: preschoolers’ calorie intake down in last decade
A new study by Christopher Ford, doctoral candidate in nutrition epidemiology at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and research assistant with the UNCFRP evaluated beverage trends of U.S. preschool children over a 10 year period between 2003-2012. The study noted that among U.S. preschoolers, total caloric intake fell by 132 calories per day, with […]
Study: Consumer Purchases of Cakes, Cookies and Pies Have Decreased by 24 Percent
A new study published by the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, by recent UNC graduate (and UNCFRP alum) Dr. Kevin C. Mathias, finds that consumer purchases of cakes, cookies, pies, and other ready-to-eat grain-based desserts decreased by 24% from 2005-2010. Dr. Mathias investigated this group of foods (ready-to-eat grain-based desserts) because they […]
Study: Daily tasks can get sedentary workers closer to national physical activity guidelines
A new study published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, titled No time for the gym? Housework and other non-labor market time use patterns are associated with meeting physical activity recommendations among adults in full-time, sedentary jobs, with lead author Lindsey Smith, found that people with sedentary (or deskbound) jobs can still meet national […]
NPR: Sayonara To ‘Super-Size Me?’ Food Companies Cut Calories, So Do We
NPR’s Alison Aubrey, with a story discussing our research published last week in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, and the impact on individuals and food and beverage companies: [Listen to the story here] It just might be the dawn of a new era in American eating. Two-thirds of us are now more likely to go […]
UNC Study Shows Food and Beverage Companies Exceed Caloric Cut Pledge
Release from UNC Gillings School of Public Health – September 17, 2014 (CHAPEL HILL, N.C.) 16 of the world’s largest food and beverage producing companies pledged to help reduce obesity of American families with children two to 18 years old by pledging to eliminate 1 trillion calories from the products these companies sold in the […]
Preliminary Results of the Effects of Tax in Mexico on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Energy Dense Non-Staple Foods
The UNC Food Research Program team and the National Institute of Public Health (INSP) of Mexico conducted a study to estimate the effect of the one peso per liter tax on sugar-sweetened beverages in Mexico. Preliminary results, released by INSP Mexico are available here. Another study by the team analyzed the effect of a tax […]
Families with Preschoolers Bought Fewer High Calorie Beverages, Chris Ford’s Study shows
A new report in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, titled Are Food and Beverage Purchases in Households with Preschoolers Changing? A Longitudinal Analysis from 2000 to 2011, with lead author Chris Ford, shows that between 2000-2011 purchases of high calorie foods and beverages declined in households with preschoolers. This study was featured by the Gillings School of […]