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Snacking occasions have increased in frequency and energy density in recent decades, with considerable implications for diet. Studies have linked presence of foods in the home with intake of those foods. This study examines home snack food inventories among a large sample of U.S. adults using latent class analysis findings to present latent classes of home snack food inventories and multinomial regression to model classes as correlates of percent of calories from fat. Participants (n = 4,896) completed an online household food environment survey including presence of 23 snack foods in the home and demographics. Less healthy snack foods were more commonly reported than healthier snack foods (M = 4.3 vs. M = 3.5). Among White and Latinx participants, high-income households reported greater numbers of both healthier and less healthy snack foods than lower income households, with larger income-based differences in inventory sizes for healthier snack foods. Latent class analysis revealed three classes by inventory size (Small, Medium, and Large) and three classes by inventory content (Healthy Snacks, Standard American, and Limited Standard American). Compared with the Small Inventory class, the Healthy Snacks class had lower caloric intake from fat (p = 0.002), the Large and Medium Inventory classes had much higher caloric intake from fat (p < 0.0001), and Standard American and Limited Standard American class members had somewhat higher caloric intake from fat (p < 0.0001, and p = 0.0001, respectively). Future research should explore the role of snacks in Americans' diets, their impact on diet quality and health, and how interventions can support healthy home food and snack food environments to foster healthy eating.

Objective: To determine whether residence in a US Department of Agriculture-designated food desert is associated with perceived access to healthy foods, grocery shopping behaviours, diet and BMI among a national sample of primary food shoppers.Design: Data for the present study came from a self-administered cross-sectional survey administered in 2015. Residential addresses of respondents were geocoded to determine whether their census tract of residence was a designated food desert or not. Inverse probability of treatment-weighted regression was used to assess whether residence in a food desert was associated with dependent variables of interest.Setting: USA.Participants: Of 4942 adult survey respondents, residential addresses of 75·0 % (n 3705) primary food shoppers were included in the analysis.Results: Residence in a food desert (11·1 %, n 411) was not significantly associated with perceived access to healthy foods, most grocery shopping behaviours or dietary behaviour, but was significantly associated with primarily shopping at a superstore or supercentre v. a large grocery store (OR = 1·32; 95 % CI 1·02, 1·71; P = 0·03) and higher BMI (b = 1·14; 95 % CI 0·36, 1·93; P = 0·004).Conclusions: Results suggest that food desert residents shop at different food stores and have higher BMI than non-food desert residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To investigate the potential dietary impact of the opening of new retailers of healthy foods.Design: Systematic review of the peer-reviewed research literature.Setting: References published before November 2015 were retrieved from MEDLINE, EMBASE and Web of Science databases using keyword searches.Subjects: The outcome of the review was change in fruit and vegetable consumption among adults.Results: Of 3514 references retrieved, ninety-two articles were reviewed in full text, and twenty-three articles representing fifteen studies were included. Studies used post-test only (n 4), repeated cross-sectional (n 4) and repeated measures designs (n 7) to evaluate the dietary impact of supermarket (n 7), farmers' market (n 4), produce stand (n 2) or mobile market (n 2) openings. Evidence of increased fruit and vegetable consumption was most consistent among adults who began shopping at the new retailer. Three of four repeated measures studies found modest, albeit not always statistically significant, increases in fruit and vegetable consumption (range 0·23-0·54 servings/d) at 6-12 months after baseline. Dietary change among residents of the broader community where the new retailer opened was less consistent.Conclusions: The methodological quality of studies, including research designs, sampling methods, follow-up intervals and outcome measures, ranged widely. Future research should align methodologically with previous work to facilitate meta-analytic synthesis of results. Opening a new retailer may result in modest short-term increases in fruit and vegetable consumption among adults who choose to shop there, but the potential longer-term dietary impact on customers and its impact on the broader community remain unclear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to an article by Larson et al. is presented, which examines food insecurity and its association with diet quality, home food availability and health risk behaviors among emerging adults in St. Paul, Minnesota.