June 2026

Designing a Community Plan to Increase Physical Activity

June 2026, NCCOR

As we head into summer—a time when many students begin internships, capstones, and research projects—this is a great opportunity to be intentional about how physical activity shows up in your work. The case study below demonstrates how students can use NCCOR tools, like the Create Thriving, Activity-Friendly Communities Toolkit, to design projects that promote active living and support healthier communities.

Background
For your summer internship, you are working with a local public health department that wants to increase physical activity among residents. The department is particularly interested in improving access to safe places for walking, biking, and recreation in underserved neighborhoods. Your role is to support the development of a community action plan that promotes active living.

Considerations
As you begin, you quickly realize that increasing physical activity requires more than just individual behavior change—it involves community design, transportation systems, and local policies. You will need to identify evidence-based strategies, engage cross-sector partners (e.g., urban planners, schools, and community organizations), and ensure that proposed solutions are equitable and feasible within the local context.

How to use the Create Thriving, Activity-Friendly Communities Toolkit

1. Start by exploring the toolkit’s framework to understand key domains that influence physical activity, such as transportation, land use, and community design.
2. Use the evidence-based strategy sections to identify interventions that align with your community’s needs—such as improving pedestrian infrastructure, enhancing park access, or supporting active transportation initiatives.
3. Review real-world examples and case studies within the toolkit to see how other communities have successfully implemented similar strategies.
4. Apply the toolkit’s planning resources to help your team prioritize strategies, engage stakeholders, and outline actionable steps for implementation.
   Use the provided tools and guidance to ensure your plan incorporates community considerations and reflects input from community members.

By the end of your internship, you will have contributed to a practical, evidence-informed plan that helps create a more activity-friendly environment—supporting healthier, more active communities.

Visit the NCCOR Student Hub for more tools and hands-on resources that help students strengthen methodological skills, access high-quality data, and use evidence-based approaches in academic and early-career settings.

Back to Top

NCCOR Toolbox: Summer Insights with NCCOR’s Catalogue of Surveillance Systems

June 2026, NCCOR

As schools break for summer and children’s routines shift, understanding trends in physical activity, nutrition, and sleep becomes increasingly important. NCCOR’s Catalogue of Surveillance Systems (CSS) helps researchers and practitioners access and compare more than 100 surveillance systems and datasets related to childhood obesity and child health, making it easier to identify seasonal patterns and inform community programs during the summer months. The CSS also includes sleep-related variables across multiple datasets, supporting growing research on the connection between sleep, healthy routines, and overall well-being for children and families. By providing centralized access to these data resources, the CSS helps advance evidence-informed strategies that support healthier summers and healthier communities year-round.

Back to Top

Ultraprocessed Foods in the U.S.: Recommended Definitions and Policies

May 2026, Healthy Eating Research

Despite growing interest in ultraprocessed foods (UPFs), there is not consensus on how to define UPFs for policy purposes. To meet this need, Healthy Eating Research convened an expert panel to develop evidence-informed recommendations for policymakers and advocates interested in advancing policies to limit UPF exposure and consumption at the local, state, and federal levels. The panel assessed evidence to 1) recommend a definition of UPF suitable for guiding policy development and 2) identify policy options to reduce exposure and consumption of UPFs in the U.S.

This report presents an evidence-informed recommended definition of UPFs, addresses key considerations for implementing this definition, and recommends policy options to limit exposure to and consumption of UPFs. The technical report contains the full review of evidence and methodology used to develop the recommendations.

[Source]

Back to Top

FMI U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends 2026

May 2026, FMI

Much how M.C. Escher played with perspective, the 2026 U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends report looks at grocery shoppers’ differing perspectives of the evolving in-store experience. Shoppers value the in-store grocery experience more than ever and expect stores to deliver many of the conveniences they’ve grown accustomed to online. Discover four key insights about how Americans shop for groceries in 2026.

[Source]

Back to Top

Disseminating and Implementing the Science of Pediatric Obesity Treatment and Prevention

May 5, 2026, Obesity

Objective

Pennington Biomedical Research Center convened a scientific symposium in March–April 2025, which brought together leaders in dissemination and implementation science to identify what is known and what is needed to foster the rapid dissemination and implementation of evidence-based, guideline-backed pediatric obesity prevention and treatment interventions.

Methods

The primary aim of the symposium was to identify effective dissemination and implementation strategies, contextual factors related to strategy selection, and mechanisms of successful intervention reach, adoption, implementation, and maintenance. Through this symposium, the overarching goal was to accelerate the rate of translation of evidence-based interventions for the prevention and treatment of pediatric obesity into practice while advancing dissemination and implementation science in settings including health care, schools, and the community.

Results and Conclusions

This article summarizes the state of the scientific evidence discussed at the symposium, identifies exemplars of implementation-effectiveness trials, and provides recommendations for disseminating and implementing evidence-based pediatric obesity prevention and treatment interventions into typical clinical and community settings.

[Source]

Back to Top

Family Sources of Weight Teasing and Associations with Adolescents’ Unhealthy Eating Behaviors, Weight Bias Internalization, and Body Appreciation

April 29, 2026, Journal of Pediatric Psychology

Objective

Family-based weight teasing is a common and harmful experience among adolescents. However, most research treats the family as a unitary source, with little examination of how weight stigma manifests from different family members. This study examined associations between weight teasing from 11 types of family members with adolescents’ weight bias internalization (WBI), body appreciation, binge eating with loss of control (BE-LOC) and overeating, and unhealthy weight control behaviors.

 Methods

A national sample of 1,073 U.S. adolescents (ages 10–17) completed online questionnaires. Hierarchical linear and logistic regressions assessed the incremental predictive value of weight teasing from parents, stepparents, siblings, and extended family, controlling for sociodemographic covariates.

 Results

Weight teasing from female relatives—mothers, sisters, stepmothers, aunts, and cousins—was consistently associated with negative adolescent outcomes, including elevated WBI, lower body appreciation, and increased disordered eating. Adolescents with normative body mass index (5th–84.9th percentile) reported the highest rates of family teasing. Teasing from male relatives (e.g., fathers, brothers, grandparents) showed weaker or inconsistent associations.

 Conclusions

Weight teasing from specific family members, especially female relatives, has distinct implications for adolescent health. Pediatric providers should screen youth of all body sizes and consider family-level interventions that extend beyond parents to address teasing from siblings and extended relatives.

[Source]

Back to Top

Generational Status, Family Structure, and Phenotypic Severity of Obesity in Children Attending a Pediatric Obesity Clinic: A Retrospective Longitudinal Study

April 23, 2026, Childhood Obesity

Background

Whether children’s generational status (i.e., immigrant generation based on country of birth) or family structure (i.e., household composition) influences phenotypic obesity severity, or outcomes of its management, remains unclear. We investigated associations of generational status and family structure with phenotypic obesity severity, its change over time, and persistence in a lifestyle-modification program among children with obesity attending a pediatric obesity clinic in Montreal (Canada).

Methods

This retrospective longitudinal analysis used medical records from children (2–17 years) who were followed between 2017 and 2023. We compared BMI z-score (BMIz) and clinical obesity prevalence at baseline and program persistence and changes in BMIz and blood pressure (BP) over follow-up, according to generational status and family structure.

Results

Among the 568 included children, 362 (63.7%) had a first- or second-generation immigrant background, and 201 (35.4%) lived in non-two-parent families. At baseline, compared with children of third generation or more, those of first or second generation had lower BMIz (3.33 [95% CI: 3.22, 3.45] vs. 3.62 [95% CI: 3.47, 3.77]; p = 0.02) but a similar prevalence of clinical obesity (47.6% [95% CI: 42.6, 53.2] vs. 53.4% [95% CI: 47.0, 60.7]; p = 0.15). No differences were observed by family structure at baseline. Over follow-up (mean ± SD: 12.7 ± 12.8 months), program persistence and reductions in BMIz and BP were similar across groups.

Conclusions

Although generational status and family structure remain relevant for tailoring counseling, we found no evidence that they are meaningfully associated with phenotypic obesity severity, its change over time, or persistence in this program.

[Source]

Back to Top

Measuring Change in School-Based Practices That Promote Children’s Healthy Eating and Active Living: A Psychometric Study

April 17, 2026, International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity

Background

Public health interventions targeting youth nutrition and physical activity often focus on changing policies, systems, and environments (PSE) in schools. To support rigorous evaluation of PSE efforts, this study examined whether the School Site-Level Assessment Questionnaire (SLAQ), a self-assessment instrument for schools serving grades kindergarten through 12 (K-12), was sufficiently sensitive to measure changes in schools’ nutrition and physical activity practices in response to interventions.

Methods

This longitudinal, observational study included 69 K-12 schools in low-income California communities that completed School SLAQs in two consecutive school years (2022 and 2023) and reported PSE and/or nutrition education interventions in school year 2022. Wilcoxon signed-rank and paired t-tests compared changes in nutrition and physical activity practices measured by the School SLAQ between years among schools with relevant interventions.

Results

Statistically significant increases in median nutrition (by 0.06, p < 0.001; effect size [ES] = 0.42) and PA (by 0.07, p < 0.001; ES = 0.64) overall domain scores were observed among schools implementing corresponding interventions. Statistically significant increases were also observed in six of nine practice areas: school meal and beverage quality (by 0.04 [95% CI: 0.002–0.07]), meal environment and promotion (by 0.04 [95% CI: 0.01–0.08]), non-meal food and beverage quality and promotion (by 0.09 [95% CI: 0.05–0.13]), non-physical education physical activity opportunities (by 0.09 [95% CI: 0.02–0.17]), physical activity facilities (by 0.07 [95% CI: 0.03–0.12]), and nutrition education (by 0.10 [95% CI: 0.01–0.18]), among schools implementing corresponding interventions.

Conclusion

The School SLAQ is, to our knowledge, the only tool demonstrated to measure changes in the K-12 school nutrition and physical activity environment. This comprehensive and valid instrument can be a valuable tool for schools and public health partners when planning and evaluating the effectiveness of school-based PSE interventions, as well as measuring the impact of policy initiatives.

[Source]

Back to Top