NCCOR’s Connect & Explore Webinar provides an in-depth look at the findings and groundbreaking methods from the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation evaluation
In an unprecedented review of the U.S. food system, researchers have, for the first time, used big data to track the number of foods and beverages consumed and purchased by Americans. The assessment, conducted by University of North Carolina (UNC) researchers, was part of an evaluation of the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation’s (HWCF) pledge to remove 1 trillion calories from the marketplace by 2012, and 1.5 trillion by 2015.
The independent evaluation was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and examined the number of calories in packaged goods and the amount of calories purchased by U.S. families with children. The two studies, published September 17 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, found that 16 food industry leaders cut 6.4 trillion calories from the U.S. food market over five years (2007-2012). The findings also showed that American families with children bought 101 fewer calories from packaged goods per person per day in 2012 than they did in 2007.
“UNC’s evaluation of HWCF is revolutionary because it compiled data from many public and commercial sources to track the flow of foods and beverages from factory to fork,” said C. Tracy Orleans, Ph.D., RWJF’s senior scientist and NCCOR Steering Committee member. “The study results found that the nation’s leading consumer packaged goods companies exceeded their five-year commitment to reduce the number of calories they collectively sold and quantified the effects on per capita calories purchased by households with children.”
In the latest edition of Connect & Explore, the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) will dive deep into the study’s landmark findings and methods and examine how UNC researchers built such an innovative and thorough picture of the U.S. food system.
Join us at 2 pm, Eastern, on Thursday, October 9, for Connect & Explore: Insights into Landmark Calorie Declines in the U.S. Food Marketplace.
In an hour, we will: discuss the new research findings; examine the study’s revolutionary methods; and explore how this data opens unique opportunities to collaborate with industry leaders to find solutions that benefit both the health of Americans and companies’ bottom line.
Speakers include:
- Shu Wen Ng, Ph.D., HWCF Evaluation Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor, Department of Nutrition, Gillings School of Public Health, University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill
- C. Tracy Orleans, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
This event is free but attendance is limited, so tell a friend and register today!
Please also consider sharing this information on your social networks using the hashtag #ConnectExplore. We will also be live tweeting the event so be sure to follow the conversation at @NCCOR. For those who cannot attend, the webinar will be recorded and archived on www.nccor.org.
To receive the webinar access information, you must register for this event:
The National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) brings together four of the nation’s leading research funders – the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) – to address the problem of childhood obesity in America.