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July 2016 Newsletter

Executive Director Dr. Amy Yaroch met with Good Housekeeping Institute in New York on June 13. 

Board Member Feature: Ariel Roblin


Ariel Roblin is president and general manager of KETV in Omaha, Neb. Married for 19 years, she has two sons, Aiden age 15 and Kian age 11. Her family is a big advocate for the arts. Roblin’s mother-in-law has a local artist studio in the Omaha Hot Shops, her husband is a local director/actor and both boys play instruments. Her youngest also acts in plays at BlueBarn and The Omaha Playhouse.
 
GSCN: What first drew you to the Center, its work and/or its people?
Roblin: Both. I think the research is fundamental to any plan that seeks to create real and lasting change in nutrition.
 
GSCN: As a newer board member, what intrigues you most about the Center’s work? 
Roblin: The Center provides useful and important research that is essential to long term success. I’ve seen so many passionate and driven directors of organizations trying to make a difference in the areas of nutrition, but they run out of resources before good quality research can be done. Without the research, fundraising is almost impossible. The research brings focus to the goals and the ability to measure the success of the project, which supports a positive trajectory for future success. 
 
GSCN: Why is the Center’s work important to you at a personal level? 
Roblin: Growing up in Cleveland Ohio, my mom owned a Vegetarian restaurant, “The Nobel Bean.” It was inspired from an idea that if you could mainstream a plant based, complete-protein diet, you could solve world hunger. That complete protein was tempeh.  My father started producing and distributing tempeh, founding the North Coast Tempeh Co. The business began when I was about four and closed when I was in high school, so it truly shaped who I am today. I am very conscious of nutrition and teach my kids the importance of it. I’m also passionate about finding what’s right for each individual. There are a lot of different ways up that mountain of optimal nutrition and exploring it is fun! For example, one of my kids eats fish but no meat while the other really enjoys meat. I don’t expect that to be the same way forever – as they grow and change I would assume they will continue to explore what’s right for them.
 
About eight years ago I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I was falling asleep at three in the afternoon – unable to stay awake, unable to have energy to play with my kids – even reading them a book. I was slipping into a depression and could not figure out what was wrong. When they finally figured it out, they told me there was no cure and I had to just deal with it. I could not accept that and finally found a doctor that gave me some advice. She told me to follow the following 7 rules for a month and then report back:
1- Exercise every day
2- Don’t sleep more than 7.5 hours
3- Don’t have more than 2 cups of coffee
4- No sugar
5- No meat (except some wild caught fish)
6- No preservatives
7- Increase my chlorophyll with a daily supplement to “clean my blood” as she put it – I think I mixed it with some OJ for my daily green drink.
 
After four months of fatigue and frustration, it only took two weeks and I was back! I couldn’t believe I had forgotten how important basic nutrition was and how when you don’t have it you can really turn your life around. Good Nutrition IS LIFE CHANGING!
 
GSCN: What do you see as the Center’s most valuable aspect? 
Roblin: Empowerment of others to make a difference in their community and raising awareness of the importance of good nutrition.
 
GSCN: What is a favorite food memory for you?
Roblin: My mom and dad decided my sister and I would be the official taste testers for the tempeh burgers. The first restaurant was an old Sub Shop and I remember my older sister and I sat on the counter and as we looked down the long sub shop countertop we saw all the burgers lined up. It looked like the tempeh burger “tastes” went on for miles! I will never forget how my mom wrote down all our comments- too much ginger, not enough tamari … finally narrowing it down to the THE Tempeh Burger. Her philosophy was if her six and four-year-old daughters loved it, everyone would! Sure enough it was a top seller.

Services Feature: Shared Measurement

Partner: Michigan State University Center for Regional Food Systems
 
Project: Michigan Good Food Charter Shared Measurement Pilot Project
 
Potential Services Provided: interview guides, survey development, webinar trainings, consensus building, pilot implementation
 
Description:
The Center has experience partnering with backbone organizations to develop and pilot shared measures. Shared measurement occurs when multiple groups use overlapping measurement tools to collect data and share and aggregate the results across the groups. This type of measurement works best when collaborative partnerships have aligned goals, allowing the organizations to work towards those goals together while not duplicating efforts. The benefits include having a collective voice and the ability to demonstrate impact of various groups’ work more powerfully. In addition, this may lead to a shift in policy or leverage further funding.
 
The Michigan State University Center for Regional Food Systems is the backbone organization that the Center has partnered with to develop shared measures in order to assess progress on the goals outlined in the Good Food Charter. In 2010, Michigan’s Good Food Charter laid out six goals for the state’s food system:

  1. "Michigan institutions will source 20 percent of their food products from Michigan growers, producers and processors.
  2. Michigan farmers will profitably supply 20 percent of all Michigan institutional, retailer and consumer food purchases and be able to pay fair wages to their workers.
  3. Michigan will generate new agri-food businesses at a rate that enables 20 percent of food purchased in Michigan to come from Michigan.
  4. Eighty percent of Michigan residents (twice the current level) will have easy access to affordable, fresh, healthy food, 20 percent of which is from Michigan sources.
  5. Michigan Nutrition Standards will be met by 100 percent of school meals and 75 percent of schools selling food outside school meal programs.
  6. Michigan schools will incorporate food and agriculture into the pre-K through 12th grade curriculum for all Michigan students and youth will have access to food and agriculture entrepreneurial opportunities."

The shared measurement project started with a stakeholder engagement phase in order to identify the primary areas of interest. The Center led the development of interview guides, conducting stakeholder interviews and the formation of an advisory committee. Interview findings were synthesized and then a follow-up survey was given to a broader group. The advisory committee then met to determine the direction the project would take, and reach consensus. Three priorities were determined: training to build capacity to understand economic impact, institutional procurement of local food, and community food access.
 
Cultivate Michigan is already working toward the Good Food Charter goal that Michigan institutions source 20% of their food locally, so the team decided to: 1) focus on developing capacity to understand economic impact through trainings and 2) combine existing survey tools that have been tested and found reliable to measure food access in a three community pilot.
 
A series of webinar trainings were conducted through a collaborative partner effort:

Overview of Evaluation Webinar
Description: Overview of program evaluation, including process steps, evaluation questions, types of evaluation and feasible methods.
 
Overview of the Research Process Webinar
Description: Overview of the research process focusing on community-based participatory research.
 
Introducing a Healthy Food Access Survey Webinar
Description: Presentation of a new draft survey tool for measuring food access, along with survey pilot application process instructions.
 
Accessing and Understanding Secondary Data on Food Access Webinar
Description: Sources for accessing secondary data related to healthy food access.
 
Three communities were awarded funding to collect data with the shared survey tools. The results will be shared and analyzed individually and in aggregate across the groups. The Center for Regional Food Systems hopes that other groups building capacity for similar projects can draw from the results and best practices can be developed.

New Project: Children's Hospital & Medical Center Preventing Childhood Obesity Community Grants Evaluation

The Center was selected by Children’s Hospital & Medical Center to help conduct an evaluation of the overall impact of the Preventing Childhood Obesity Community Grants program.  The evaluation project began in May and will continue through December 30. The Center will be interviewing current grantees to discuss reach of the programs, grantee organization readiness to complete projects, and assess challenges and successes for the organizations trying to address childhood obesity in our community. Across the grantees, the Center will compile information to determine key findings and make recommendations for evaluation strategies to increase capacity among community organizations and help to start determining overall impact of the community grants program. 

New Project: Assessment of Sponsor Retention and Success in the Oregon Summer Food Service Program

The Center has started a new project with Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon to determine facilitators and barriers to the success of the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) in Oregon. Five years of SFSP data will be analyzed and then program sponsors will be interviewed to augment findings from the quantitative data analysis. A number of factors including sponsor retention, growth in number of meals served and number of operating days will be analyzed. A report, delivered in September, will outline key findings. The Center is excited to work on this project with previous Research Associate Marcella Miller, who now works for Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon. From the Center, Postdoctoral Research Fellow Teresa Smith, Ph.D., Graduate Research Assistant Casey Blaser, M.Sc., and Research Associates Tom Barnard, MPH, and Alethea Chiappone, MPH, MSW, will be conducting this work.

International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity Conference

Adjunct Research Scientist Dr. Jennie Hill attended the International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA) Conference June 8 through 11 in Cape Town, South Africa. She presented her paper “Development and pilot testing of iChoose: a community based participatory adaptation and implementation of an evidence based childhood obesity intervention.”

Carmen Byker Shanks of Montana State University and Center Postdoctoral Research Fellow Teresa Smith tour Fair Oaks Dairy Farm in Indiana as part of the Midwest Dairy Council Meeting.

Midwest Dairy Council Meeting

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Teresa Smith, attended the National Dairy Council’s Honor the Harvest: From Dairy Farm to Table meeting in Chicago, Ill. June 13 through 15. The event included presentations from the latest science in dairy and sustainable agriculture and evidence-based practice, as well as a tour of Fair Oaks Farms in Fair Oaks, Ind. with a speech by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

2016 Council for State and Territorial Epidemiologists Annual Conference

Research associate Kelli Gruber presented “Identifying and monitoring chronic disease disparities by income and race/ethnicity using the Health Disparities Calculator (HD*calc)” at the 2016 Council for State and Territorial Epidemiologists Annual Conference in Anchorage, Alaska on June 19 through 23. This project was part of her past work as an applied epidemiology fellow for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Council for State and Territorial Epidemiologists.

WorkWell Kansas Advisory Committee Meeting

Executive Director Dr. Amy Yaroch will be participating in the WorkWell Kansas Advisory Committee Meeting at the Kansas University School of Medicine in Wichita, Kansas on July 14. This will be her second year serving on the advisory committee. 

Pinard CA, Bertmann FMW, Shanks CB, Schober DJ, Smith TM, Carpenter LC, Yaroch AL. What Factors Influence SNAP Participation? Literature Reflecting Enrollment in Food Assistance Programs From a Social and Behavioral Science Perspective. Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition. 2016;0(0):1-18. doi:10.1080/19320248.2016.1146194.

Shuval K, Drope J, Yaroch A, Stoklosa M, Pachucki M, Harding M. Delayed Discounting and Meeting Physical Activity Guidelines. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 2016; 48(5):132. doi: 10.1249/01.mss.0000485395.35338.a4

Smith TM, Bertmann FMW, Pinard CA, Schober DJ, Shuval K, Nguyen BT, Fricke HE, Yaroch AL. Factors Associated With Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Participation Among the Working Poor: Findings From 2012 American Community Survey. Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition. 2016;0(0):1-12. doi:10.1080/19320248.2016.1146196.

Amanda Schneider, Lindsey Deakin, Dr. Eric Calloway, Leah Carpenter, Alethea Chiappone and Dr. Teresa Smith watched Arizona beat UC Santa Barbara at the College World Series on June 22.

About Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition

The Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition aids in survey development and evaluation for national organizations and others. If you are interested in finding out more about these services, please contact
Dr. Amy Yaroch, executive director, at ayaroch@centerfornutrition.org.

Copyright © *|2016|* *|Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition|*, All rights reserved.


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