Amber Waves, February 21, 2013
Grocery store purchase data reveal that Americans underspend on fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and overspend on refined grains, fats, and sugars/sweets, compared with USDA's dietary recommendations, a pattern that showed little change from 1998 to 2006. Food choices when eating out are even mo...
EIB-108, February 20, 2013
New food labeling regulations and new diet and nutrition information can affect food companies’ use of health- and nutrition-related claims. This report examines the use of these claims from 1989 to 2010.
EIB-105, December 27, 2012
The increased popularity and lower nutritional quality of food away from home (FAFH) prompts new health promotion strategies. Over the past 30 years, food at home has changed more in response to dietary guidance than FAFH, particularly for fat and calcium content.
Amber Waves, December 03, 2012
Replacing calorie-dense snack foods with fruits and vegetables can be one step in addressing childhood obesity and does not have to compromise a family’s food budget.
ERR-143, November 28, 2012
Efforts to encourage Americans to improve their diets and to eat more nutritious foods presume that a wide variety of these foods are accessible to everyone. But for some Americans and in some communities, access to healthy foods may be limited. Using population data from the 2010 Census, income a...
EIB-102, November 08, 2012
The nutritional quality of Americans’ diets has increasingly become a focus of economic
research due to its effects on health outcomes. Health care and other costs associated
with obesity, overweight, diabetes, and other diet-related ailments continue to swell.
This study focuses on consumers’ groce...
Amber Waves, September 20, 2012
Prices have an effect on people’s food choices, and related health outcomes, but they are not the only factor.
TB-1934, August 15, 2012
The ERS Eating and Health Module, a supplement to the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), included questions on height and weight so that respondents’ Body Mass Index (BMI—a measure of body fat based on height and weight) could be calculated and
analyzed with ATUS time-use data in obesity research. Som...
EIB-86, November 09, 2011
This report uses data from the 2006-08 ERS Eating & Health Module of the American Time Use Survey to present an overview of Americans’ eating and other food-related time use patterns, including grocery shopping and meal preparation, and teenage time use patterns in relation to school meals. On an av...
ERR-118, June 30, 2011
One factor that may be important in explaining rising childhood obesity is food prices. This report explores the effect of food prices on children’s Body Mass Index (BMI) using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K) and the Quarterly Food-at-Home Pri...
ERR-100, July 02, 2010
The link between high U.S. obesity rates and the overconsumption of added sugars, largely from sodas and fruit drinks, has prompted public calls for a tax on caloric sweetened beverages. Faced with such a tax, consumers may reduce consumption of these sweetened beverages and substitute nontaxed beve...
AP-047, April 05, 2010
The Eating & Health (EH) Module of the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) collects additional data to analyze relationships among time use patterns and eating patterns, nutrition, and obesity; food and nutrition assistance programs; and grocery shopping and meal preparation. This User’s Guide provides ...
AP-036, June 25, 2009
This report fills a request for a study of food deserts—areas with limited access to affordable and nutritious food—from the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008. The report summarizes findings of a national-level assessment of the extent and characteristics of food deserts, analysis of the co...
EB-13, April 01, 2009
One of the most worrisome aspects of the growing tide of obesity in the United States is the high rate of overweight among children. Over one in five young children, ages 2 to 5, are at risk of being overweight. The number of children at risk of being overweight has grown in the past two decades, as...