scholarly journals Perspectives from the front line: The post-pandemic emergency food system in North Carolina

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Amanda Hege ◽  
Nikki McCormick ◽  
Peggy Robinson ◽  
Kina Charles ◽  
Jan Jones ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Food System ◽  
Storm Surges ◽  
Healthy Foods ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Nutrition Security ◽  
Adequate Funding ◽  
Emergency Food System ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

The novel coronavirus pandemic has had an immediate effect on food and nutrition security, leading to the most widespread increase in need for food assistance in modern history. At its onset, the pandemic led to emergency food providers experiencing the “perfect storm”: surges in demand, declines and changes in types of food donations, limits in the food supply chain, and fewer available volunteers. This policy and practice brief provides perspectives from emergency food providers in North Carolina on their pandemic response along with recommendations for policy and practice applications to promote food security. As the pandemic continues, it is urgent for policymakers, organizations, community members, and other food system stakeholders to encourage collaboration across food system sectors, provide adequate funding for all aspects of distributing healthy foods, promote a continuation of program and policy flexibilities for nutrition programs, and support community-based models that engage a diverse group of organizations and leaders.

scholarly journals Enhancing the Glopan Food Systems Framework by Integrating Gender: Relevance for Women in African Agriculture

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8564
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Mkandawire ◽  
Melody Mentz-Coetzee ◽  
Margaret Najjingo Mangheni ◽  
Eleonora Barusi
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Gender Barriers ◽  
Nutrition Security ◽  
African Agriculture ◽  
Agriculture And Food ◽  
Systems Framework

Globally, gender inequalities constrain food security, with women often disproportionately affected. Women play a fundamental role in household food and nutrition security. The multiple roles women play in various areas of the food system are not always recognised. This oversight emerges from an overemphasis on one aspect of the food system, without considering how this area might affect or be affected by another aspect. This study aimed to draw on international commitments and treaties using content analysis to enhance the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Security food systems framework by integrating a gender perspective. The study found that generally, there is a consensus on specific actions that can be taken to advance gender equality at specific stages of the food system. However, governance and social systems constraints that are not necessarily part of the food system, but have a significant bearing on men and women’s capacity to effectively participate in the food system, need to be addressed. While the proposed conceptual framework has some limitations, it offers a foundation on which researchers, policymakers and other stakeholders can begin conceptualising the interconnectedness of gender barriers in the food system.

scholarly journals Shaping Physical, Economic, and Policy Components of the Food Environment to Create Sustainable Healthy Diets

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (2_suppl) ◽  
pp. 74S-86S
Author(s):  
Adam Drewnowski ◽  
Eva C. Monterrosa ◽  
Saskia de Pee ◽  
Edward A. Frongillo ◽  
Stefanie Vandevijvere
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Food Environment ◽  
Food System ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Food Environments ◽  
Healthy Foods ◽  
Equitable Access ◽  
Nutrition Labels ◽  
Healthy Diets ◽  
Physical Spaces

Background: Sustainable healthy diets are those dietary patterns that promote all dimensions of individuals’ health and well-being; have low environmental pressure and impact; are accessible, affordable, safe, and equitable; and are culturally acceptable. The food environment, defined as the interface between the wider food system and consumer’s food acquisition and consumption, is critical for ensuring equitable access to foods that are healthy, safe, affordable, and appealing. Discussion: Current food environments are creating inequities, and sustainable healthy foods are generally more accessible for those of higher socioeconomic status. The physical, economic, and policy components of the food environment can all be acted on to promote sustainable healthy diets. Physical spaces can be modified to improve relative availability (ie, proximity) of food outlets that carry nutritious foods in low-income communities; to address economic access certain actions may improve affordability, such as fortification, preventing food loss through supply chain improvements; and commodity specific vouchers for fruits, vegetables, and legumes. Other policy actions that address accessibility to sustainable healthy foods are comprehensive marketing restrictions and easy-to-understand front-of-pack nutrition labels. While shaping food environments will require concerted action from all stakeholders, governments and private sector bear significant responsibility for ensuring equitable access to sustainable healthy diets.

scholarly journals Healthy eating: a matter of prioritisation by households or policymakers?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Joreintje Dingena Mackenbach
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Healthy Eating ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Fruits And Vegetables ◽  
Food System ◽  
Vegetable Consumption ◽  
Fruit And Vegetable Consumption ◽  
Healthy Foods ◽  
Fruit And Vegetable ◽  
Decision Making Processes

Abstract I reflect upon the potential reasons why American low-income households do not spend an optimal proportion of their food budgets on fruits and vegetables, even though this would allow them to meet the recommended levels of fruit and vegetable consumption. Other priorities than health, automatic decision-making processes and access to healthy foods play a role, but solutions for the persistent socio-economic inequalities in diet should be sought in the wider food system which promotes cheap, mass-produced foods. I argue that, ultimately, healthy eating is not a matter of prioritisation by individual households but by policymakers.

scholarly journals Promoting healthy foods among urban school children in Bangladesh: a qualitative inquiry of the challenges and opportunities

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. M. Rumayan Hasan ◽  
George Smith ◽  
Md Harunor Rashid ◽  
Mohammad Abdus Selim ◽  
Sabrina Rasheed
Keyword(s):  
School Children ◽  
Food System ◽  
Vegetable Consumption ◽  
Food Preferences ◽  
Urban School ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
Overweight And Obesity ◽  
Food Culture ◽  
Healthy Foods ◽  
Raw Foods

Abstract Background In Bangladesh overweight and obesity among urban school children are on the rise. Urban school children tend to consume foods dense in calories and few fruits and vegetables which is associated with overweight and obesity. The current study explored the barriers and opportunities for promoting healthy diets among school children from the perspective of teachers and parents in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Methods We conducted 14 key informant interviews with teachers and principals, six focus group discussions with 31 mothers of school children (5 to 15 year old) and 14 structured observations of the school food environment. Inductive thematic analysis was performed manually. Results Schools were important for development of food preferences of children, however, most school cafeterias provided foods based on profit rather than health considerations. A shift in food culture resulted in making eating out acquire many meanings beyond convenience. Mothers, especially those who were employed, struggled to prepare healthy foods due to time pressure. Mothers were generally concerned about chemicals added to raw foods in markets which led to limited fruit and vegetable consumption. Conclusions There were many challenges to promoting healthy foods to school children within and outside the school. It is important to formulate policies and guidance to create a supportive environment for healthy foods in and in the proximity of schools. It is also important to educate consumers about identifying and choosing healthy foods. Laws related to food safety should be adequately implemented to boost the population’s confidence in safety of available healthy foods in the food system.

Voices After Disaster

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Few ◽  
Mythili Madhavan ◽  
Narayanan N.C. ◽  
Kaniska Singh ◽  
Hazel Marsh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Indian Institute ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
East Anglia ◽  
Other Information ◽  
The Media ◽  
Institute Of Technology ◽  
The University ◽  
Disaster Narratives

This document is an output from the “Voices After Disaster: narratives and representation following the Kerala floods of August 2018” project supported by the University of East Anglia (UEA)’s GCRF QR funds. The project is carried out by researchers at UEA, the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, and Canalpy, Kerala. In this briefing, we provide an overview of some of the emerging narratives of recovery in Kerala and discuss their significance for post-disaster recovery policy and practice. A key part of the work was a review of reported recovery activities by government and NGOs, as well as accounts and reports of the disaster and subsequent activities in the media and other information sources. This was complemented by fieldwork on the ground in two districts, in which the teams conducted a total of 105 interviews and group discussions with a range of community members and other local stakeholders. We worked in Alleppey district, in the low-lying Kuttanad region, where extreme accumulation of floodwaters had been far in excess of the normal seasonal levels, and in Wayanad district, in the Western Ghats, where there had been a concentration of severe flash floods and landslides.

scholarly journals Assessing Sustainable Food and Nutrition Security of the EU Food System—An Integrated Approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 4271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Zurek ◽  
Aniek Hebinck ◽  
Adrian Leip ◽  
Joost Vervoort ◽  
Marijke Kuiper ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Science Communication ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Food And Nutrition Security ◽  
Nutrition Security ◽  
Systems Research ◽  
Nutrition And Diet ◽  
Food And Nutrition ◽  
The Eu

Steering the EU food system towards a sustainability transformation requires a vast and actionable knowledge base available to a range of public and private actors. Few have captured this complexity by assessing food systems from a multi-dimensional and multi-level perspective, which would include (1) nutrition and diet, environmental and economic outcomes together with social equity dimensions and (2) system interactions across country, EU and global scales. This paper addresses this gap in food systems research and science communication by providing an integrated analytical approach and new ways to communicate this complexity outside science. Based on a transdisciplinary science approach with continuous stakeholder input, the EU Horizon2020 project ‘Metrics, Models and Foresight for European SUStainable Food And Nutrition Security’ (SUSFANS) developed a five-step process: Creating a participatory space; designing a conceptual framework of the EU food system; developing food system performance metrics; designing a modelling toolbox and developing a visualization tool. The Sustainable Food and Nutrition-Visualizer, designed to communicate complex policy change-impacts and trade-off questions, enables an informed debate about trade-offs associated with options for change among food system actors as well as in the policy making arena. The discussion highlights points for further research related to indicator development, reach of assessment models, participatory processes and obstacles in science communication.

scholarly journals Grappling With Complex Food Systems to Reduce Obesity: A US Public Health Challenge

2018 ◽  
Vol 133 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 44S-53S ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Barnhill ◽  
Anne Palmer ◽  
Christine M. Weston ◽  
Kelly D. Brownell ◽  
Kate Clancy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Targeted Interventions ◽  
Health Community ◽  
Policies And Programs ◽  
State Programs

Despite 2 decades of effort by the public health community to combat obesity, obesity rates in the United States continue to rise. This lack of progress raises fundamental questions about the adequacy of our current approaches. Although the causes of population-wide obesity are multifactorial, attention to food systems as potential drivers of obesity has been prominent. However, the relationships between broader food systems and obesity are not always well understood. Our efforts to address obesity can be advanced and improved by the use of systems approaches that consider outcomes of the interconnected global food system, including undernutrition, climate change, the environmental sustainability of agriculture, and other social and economic concerns. By implementing innovative local and state programs, taking new approaches to overcome political obstacles to effect policy, and reconceptualizing research needs, we can improve obesity prevention efforts that target the food systems, maximize positive outcomes, and minimize adverse consequences. We recommend strengthening innovative local policies and programs, particularly those that involve community members in identifying problems and potential solutions and that embrace a broad set of goals beyond making eating patterns healthier. We also recommend undertaking interdisciplinary research projects that go beyond testing targeted interventions in specific populations and aim to build an understanding of the broader social, political, and economic context.

scholarly journals Intense, Pervasive and Shared Faculty Dialogue: Generating Understanding and Identifying “Hotspots” in Five Days

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-35
Author(s):  
Emily Janke ◽  
Barbara Holland ◽  
Kristin Medlin
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Faculty Support ◽  
University Of North Carolina ◽  
Engaged Scholarship ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Promotion And Tenure ◽  
Community Engaged Scholarship ◽  
The University

Once an institution has chosen to recognize and reward community-engaged scholarship in its university-wide promotion and tenure policy, what are some strategies for aligning unit and department policies as well? This chapter describes the path followed at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro to align policies across all units and departments. Discussed are core strategies used to generate faculty support for community-engaged scholarship in promotion and tenure policy and practice, the themes revealed as a result of a weeklong dialogue initiative, and recommendations for continued improvement.

scholarly journals Setting the table, not running it: An inclusive approach to access to healthy foods

2021 ◽  
pp. 47-50
Author(s):  
Karen Emmerman
Keyword(s):  
Child Labor ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Food System ◽  
Food Justice ◽  
Healthy Foods ◽  
Species Barrier ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Living Wages ◽  
Inclusive Approach ◽  
Access To Healthy Foods

Food Empowerment Project (F.E.P.) is a vegan food justice nonprofit in northern California. We focus on making a more just and sustainable food system for everyone involved. Since injustice in the food system crosses the species barrier, we work to connect the dots between the exploitation of human and nonhuman animals. We focus our efforts on four main areas: ending the use of animals in the food system, improving access to healthy foods in Black, Brown, and low-income communities, exposing the worst forms of child labor (including slavery) in the chocolate industry, and advocating for farmworker rights. These seemingly disparate areas have much in common: they are interlocking forms of oppres­sion, marginalization, and domination in the food system. We recognize that the intersecting nature of oppression necessitates a nuanced response. For example, as an organization working on both farm­worker justice and food apartheid, we cannot advocate for lowering the price of food as this would negatively impact produce workers who already suffer grave systemic injustice. Instead, we advocate for equality of access and living wages for everyone.[1] In this piece, we focus on our approach to the lack of access to healthy foods, and specifically our community-based efforts in Vallejo, California.

scholarly journals White envy and piggy-backing privilege : exploring adult Korean transracial adoptees' identities in the Canadian context

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelsea Goss
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Adoptive Parents ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
White Family ◽  
Predominately White ◽  
Canadian Context ◽  
Transracial Adoptees ◽  
Adoptive Identity

The purpose of this study is to explore how adult Korean transracial adoptees reflect on their racial and adoptive identities throughout their lifetimes, developing a unique sense of belonging and membership in the Canadian context. The main question under investigation is: If transracial adoptees have been raised among predominately white family and community members, then how do their processes of racial and adoptive identity formation fit into to critical theories of racialization and frameworks of normalized whiteness and colour blindness: Six interviews explore processes in which Korean transracial adoptees develop complex identities to navigate through difference, engaging with ethnic communities and their birth cultures to develop a distinctive membership in society. Research in the field of transracial adoption is crucial for revising policy and practice, engaging with adoptive parents' racial (in)sensitivities, expanding the notion of the traditional family, and pushing social workers and adoption agencies to step outside their comfort zones.

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