Contributions of Food Environments to Dietary Quality and Cardiovascular Disease Risk.

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE OF REVIEW To evaluate the multidimensional influence of food environments on food choice, dietary quality, and diet-related health and identify critical gaps necessary to develop effective population interventions that influence food choice. RECENT FINDINGS: Multicomponent interventions that interact with multiple layers of the food environment show limited but consistent effects on dietary behaviors and may have wider and substantive population-level reach with greater incorporation of validated, holistic measurement tools. Opportunities to use smartphone technology to measure multiple components of the food environment will facilitate future interventions, particularly as food environments expand into online settings and interact with consumers in novel ways to shape food choice. While studies suggest that all dimensions of the food environment influence diet and health outcomes, robust and consistent measurements of food environments that integrate objective and subjective components are essential for developing stronger evidence needed to shift public policies.