Promoting healthy diets for the entire family can better improve health outcomes for people with chronic illnesses, according to a new Cornell study. "Families are an essential social unit, and food is a social medium: families pool and negotiate food choices, and it's also the way we pass on dietary preferences, traditions and build kinship," said Ramya Ambikapthi, senior research associate in the Food Systems & Global Change program in the Department of Global Development, in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. "If you can change food behaviors at the family level, you have the opportunity to achieve healthier diets for all, now and for the next generation.
" Ambikapthi is the co-first author of the paper, Aug. 7 in and co-written with colleagues from Purdue University, University of South Carolina, Harvard University, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences in Tanzania, Tanzania Food and Nutrition Center, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the University of Illinois. Research and policy on nutrition support have historically focused on external factors, such as market prices and availability, and individual factors, including affordability and physical distance from .
In the last few years, researchers have begun emphasizing the importance of family food dynamics as both a factor influencing individual food choices and as a policy lever to improve healthy, sustainable diets for all, Ambikapthi said. In the current study, researchers use.