The Woodland Daily Democrat picked up a press release our office distributed a few days ago about funding UCCE nutrition educators received to create a low-literacy questionnaire to identify children on the path toward overweight or obesity. I delayed writing about this story's appearance in the news media a few days hoping that I would see it picked up elsewhere.
In essence, the article announces the fact that the National Research Initiative funded a $390,000 grant that will allow UC Cooperative Extension experts to document the specific behaviors associated with the growth of overweight and obesity, such as whether parents eat vegetables in front of their children, whether the children play outside, and whether the children eat breakfast every day.
"It's not enough for us to have a good idea what is going on," said principle investigator Marilyn Townsend, a nutrition specialist based at UC Davis. "We must prove it using a scientific process and that requires an accurate way to identify these behaviors."
Of course, releases that report findings carry more weight than those about research being funded, but this story does raise questions that would be of interest to nutrition professionals and enthusiasts. One can say the release is "evergreen," so it may yet live another day.