New Food Service Guidelines Tool

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October 2021

Greetings,   As autumn advances, I am motivated to switch to more fall-themed, delicious home-cooked foods. Yet I realize that having access to nutritious meals is a privilege not all Americans share. An estimated 42 million Americans—1 in 8—may experience food insecurity in 2021. Others may have enough food to satisfy their hunger but not enough essential nutrients to thrive.   Our vision of health equity includes optimal nutrition for everyone across the lifespan. Three recent examples from the Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) program illustrate local partners working toward this goal. Washington’s Tukwila Village Farmers’ Market helps immigrant and refugee food growers navigate regulatory and commercial systems, cultivate crops in Washington’s climate, and start farming operations. Food pantries in Hancock County, Georgia, are increasing their healthy options. The approach includes procuring large refrigerators to store fresh produce and adopting a nutrition policy for orders and donations. Small corner stores in San Antonio are offering more fresh fruits and vegetables. Watch these videos to see how it started, how the partnerships work, and how some customers and store owners responded.

 

In addition to this great work, I see several opportunities to improve optimal nutrition across the country. For example, we partner with the National Association of Community Health Centers as they strive to support healthy weight in children through nutrition counseling and lifestyle interventions. They are making great strides in spreading and scaling this through Federally Qualified Health Centers.   Other opportunities to improve nutrition include increasing access to breastfeeding-friendly environments, improving nutrition standards in early care and education and work site and community settings, and applying the Food Service Guidelines for Federal Facilities.   Related to this, we are pleased to announce the new Food Service Guidelines Implementation Toolkit that offers tips on establishing and expanding nutrition standards in work sites and public facilities. It includes sample language for vendor contracts, purchasing agreements, or organizational policies.

Thanks for all that you do to improve access to nutritious foods, especially for people who are most at risk for food insecurity. Everyone deserves a healthy, easily accessible, and affordable source of healthy and culturally-appropriate food.   Ruth Petersen, Director, DNPAO

 

NEW! Food Service Guidelines Implementation Tookit

Feature Of The Month

 

NEW Maternity Care Practices National and State Reports

Hospital maternity care practices and policies that influence newborn feeding, staff skills, feeding education, and discharge support are reflected in reports released in October 2021.   The state and national reports are based on the Maternity Practices in Infant Nutrition and Care (mPINC) survey data. All hospitals with maternity services were invited to participate. In 2020, 2,103 hospitals responded, representing 75% of all hospitals with maternity services.

 

State reports summarize the strength of breastfeeding support in participating hospitals. The reports identify opportunities for states and territories to better protect, promote, and support breastfeeding mothers and infants. State scores range from 70 to 90, with 100 being the highest score possible.   The national report summarizes similar information. The 2020 national score is 81, a two–point increase from 2018. National mPINC data can be used to bring together partners, identify gaps, celebrate achievements, and prioritize next steps.   The mPINC survey was redesigned in 2018. Results from the 2018 and 2020 mPINC survey cannot be compared with results from 2007–2015 mPINC surveys. Have questions? Email mpinc@cdc.gov.

Find Your State Report See the National Report

 

News You Can Use

What's New

 

The number of states with adult obesity prevalence at or above 35% has nearly doubled since 2018 and disparities persist. See new maps. In 2020, seven states adopted licensing regulations that affect healthy eating behaviors and physical activity opportunities in early care and education settings. See the new annual report—Achieving a State of Healthy Weight. Helping Young Children Thrive is a new infographic about healthy practices in the early care and education setting. Mejora tu Bebida, a Spanish language translation of the Rethink Your Drink (sugary drink) webpage, is available. Everyone can be involved in Active People, Healthy NationSM. New website pages highlight the role of people working in transportation and parks, recreation, and green spaces. The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recently recommended two classroom-based interventions to increase physical activity: physical activity breaks and physically active lessons. By the end of 2020, almost 1,600 US communities adopted Complete Streets policies. These policies help create communities where individuals can safely and easily walk, cycle, roll, or move actively with assistive devices to nearby essential destinations. See new maps.

Wins From the Field: Ideas From CDC-Funded Grantees

 

Rural Oklahoma Town Gets a Makeover

In northeastern Oklahoma, the town of Westville is getting a physical activity makeover. The town has about 1,600 people, and an estimated 40.5% of the adults live with obesity.

 

To increase opportunities for physical activity, community leaders determined that their priorities would be revitalizing the public park and developing Safe Routes to Schools. The Westville School District serves almost 1,000 students, 47% of whom are Native Americans.   At the park, partners added two bike racks, installed and painted a 4-inch overlay on the basketball court, painted the basketball hoops and trash cans, planted 5 shade trees, and installed safety signs. Plans include solar lighting and trail signage.

Jessie Collins, Oklahoma State University High Obesity Program educator for Adair County, paints a park's basketball court with the local school colors. To make it safer for students to walk or bike to school, community leaders added 12 crosswalks, 4 bike racks, and 4 speed bumps. They updated 72 safety signs and 40 signage poles and repainted 5 existing crosswalks. The crosswalks connect to common destinations, including the park, football field, and a food pantry.   The next step is to expand the built environment improvements. The City of Westville has adopted a Complete Streets policy. It will include improving crosswalks, sidewalks, and walking paths.   Westville is in Adair County and is served by the High Obesity Program. In collaboration with Oklahoma State University, program partners include Cherokee Nation Tribal Council members, the City of Westville, Adair County Commissioners, and Westville Schools.

 

See What Others Are Doing

Upcoming Health Observances

 

November National Native American Heritage Month American Diabetes Month Lung Cancer Awareness Month Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Awareness Month Diabetic Eye Disease Month November 18—Great American Smokeout November 18—National Rural Health Day November 22–26—National Family Week November 25—National Family Health History Day

Suggested Social Media Posts

 

Brain health and chronic disease are connected. Being physically active and eating well are just two ways to help improve brain health. Here are more steps you can take for a healthy body and healthier brain. https://bit.ly/2Fmwx1P Taking care of yourself will help your immune system take care of you. Check out these 6 tips to enhance immunity. https://bit.ly/3hGcHj2 Staying active, eating healthy, and planning activities that don’t involve eating are three ways to make healthy living a priority this holiday season. Learn more here: https://bit.ly/2j53j7D

Behind The Scenes

 

Marissa Scalia Sucosky, Public Health Analyst

I’m a member of the Population Health and Health Care Team in DNPAO’s Obesity Prevention and Control Branch. I am mainly involved in two projects to support research to practice: The Childhood Obesity Research Demonstration (CORD) helps adapt evidence-based pediatric healthy lifestyle interventions to reach children in families with low incomes. The Clinical and Community Data Initiative (CODI) creates tools to help researchers and evaluators connect patient data, community data, and social determinants of health information, while preserving privacy. CODI is creating innovative data linkages for quality improvement, surveillance, and research. I also support DNPAO’s project with the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) to provide healthy living supports to children with obesity from families with low incomes. This includes telehealth during the pandemic. The NACHC work provides information for me in my role as co-chair of DNPAO’s Community Clinical Linkages (CCL) workgroup. The CCL workgroup primarily supports the Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) program. The CCL workgroup identifies best practices and approaches including how to work with clinical partners to screen and refer individuals to programs that address food insecurity and chronic disease self-management.

 

What is your greatest professional satisfaction? I really enjoy expediting projects and accomplishing things that seem impossible. For example, I helped develop a new contract to support data modernization efforts including CODI—it took 6 months when it usually requires nearly a year. In another instance, the National Cancer Institute offers an entrepreneurial program to their academic researcher recipients. We wanted CORD recipients to participate, but there wasn’t a way for them to do so. We worked with the American Academy of Pediatrics to develop a similar curriculum to support business models for scaling and commercializing pediatric healthy weight interventions for CORD recipients. It is satisfying to be able to accomplish challenging tasks that advance our work.   How do partners help you do your work? Our partners help translate evidence into action within communities. We have evidence about what works, and our partners demonstrate how to incorporate these practices into their organizations. They often use a team-based model with a combination of doctors, nurses, registered dietitians, behavioral specialists, social workers, and community health workers. They tailor their work to different audiences, in different settings, reaching children in families with the lowest incomes and in communities disproportionately affected by obesity and COVID-19. Our partners’ approach shows us how to make programs acceptable to families and providers in the real world.   What would you like partners to know? Our team supports healthy child growth as well as children with obesity. We work with multiple partners to offer health care providers more tools to screen for and support healthy weight among their families. We are also developing e-tools that will help better analyze data in a timely manner. With a September study in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) showing that many US children gained more weight than expected during the pandemic, now more than ever we need for all parts of society to support our children’s health.   Favorite quote: “It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.” James Thurber

 

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