Environmental Strategies and Policies to Support Healthy Eating and Physical Activity in Low-Income Communities

Although rates of poor nutrition, physical inactivity, and diabetes are increasing among all individuals, disparities in these rates are related to ethnic background and socioeconomic status. These disparities are linked not just to nutrition and physical activity directly, but also to the environmental conditions in which people live. These environmental conditions may include increasing availability of fast food and soda on school campuses; limited access to healthy and affordable foods in low-income communities; aggressive marketing of junk food to children, inadequate park space and programming, lack of safe and attractive places to play, walk, or bike, and inadequate time, resources and facilities for physical education. Addressing environmental barriers to nutritional health requires policy change in a number of different areas, including state, community, and institutional level policies. (C) 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.