Student Capstone: Healthy Food Options Audit
By Barbara Wisinski
University of Miami, Master’s of Public Health
Healthy Food Options Audit
Spring 2020
A steady rise of obesity prevalence over the past 50 years has led to a global pandemic, resulting in over 2.1 billion people being classified as obese or overweight worldwide. Obesity can lead to a multitude of negative health effects such as type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, and cancer, globally causing approximately 3.4 million preventable deaths each year. In the US, both youth and adult obesity are on the rise with prevalence rates of 18.5% and 42.4%, respectfully.
Aside from age, other sociodemographic characteristics such as race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES) also account for differences in obesity prevalence. The primary driving factors of obesity include an increase in unhealthy diet and sedentary behavior. These factors are especially exacerbated by the presence of an unhealthy community environment (e.g. lack of sidewalks and parks, increased presence of fast food restaurants, inaccessible healthy food options, etc.).
In this study, the Jupiter, Florida, community is assessed for its access to healthy food options through the administration of a healthy food options audit. Upon completion, it was found that, on average, healthy foods are more expensive than their less healthy counterparts in grocery store settings, most likely leading lower-income populations to choose less healthy options. Additionally, signage promoting healthy foods along with nutritional information was generally lacking in fast food restaurants, even though healthy food options were available at a comparable price in these same restaurants. Finally, convenient access to healthy foods at registers was not present.
Future work should examine how best to increase access to, and knowledge of, affordable healthy food options, to those individuals at greatest risk for food insecurity both in Jupiter, and elsewhere.
Download the full report and findings here: Healthy Food Options Audit.