NCSL Resources on Hunger and Nutrition
Updated June 2006
Related Programs
Access to Healthy Food
Although personal choice and nutrition education certainly weigh heavily in a person's decision to follow a healthy diet, policymakers' decisions affect the food options that are available and easily accessible. Land use, transportation, education, agriculture, environmental and economic development policies can enable a person's ability to access, purchase and consume healthier foods. At the state level, five promising policy areas may greatly affect access to healthy foods. They include the production and
marketing of healthy food; affordability; residents' access to healthy food; government purchasing for public schools and other facilities; and coordinated planning to achieve an effective comprehensive food system.
Healthy Community Design
Healthy community design emphasizes how transportation, land use, agriculture and education policies can encourage routine physical activity and make healthy foods accessible and affordable to children and families, especially in low-income minority communities. This project is intended to broaden state legislators' awareness of the relationships among policies from separate jurisdictions-health, environment, transportation, community design, agriculture and education-and how, if crafted in an integrated manner, such policies can more effectively promote physical activity and a healthy diet to achieve public health benefits. Examples of such policies include Safe Routes to School grant programs; mixed-use and transit-oriented developments; increasing the number of sidewalks, bike lanes and off-road trails and selective school siting.
Nutrition Physical Activity and Obesity
NCSL’s health program has a number of resources on nutrition, physical activity and obesity. Poor nutrition and physical inactivity are associated with an increased risk of a number of chronic health conditions including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, some cancers, high blood pressure, as well as overweight and obesity. Fifty-nine million U.S. adults are obese. Sixteen percent of U.S. children and adolescents age 6-19 are overweight. Since 1980, being overweight has doubled for children and tripled for adolescents. Annual direct medical expenses attributable to obesity in the United States were estimated at $75 billion for 2003, with about half of these obesity-attributable expenditures funded by taxpayers through Medicare and Medicaid. To respond to concerns about the long-term health effects and health care costs of obesity, state legislatures in many states have considered a variety of nutrition and physical activity legislation. NCSL provides information to state lawmakers about child obesity and physical education policies in the states.
Standing Committees
Human Services and Welfare Committee - Federal Issues
Health Committee - Federal Issues
Agriculture and Rural Development Committee
Education Committee
Publications and Legislative Databases
Health Community Design Legislation Database
This database contains summaries of bills beginning with the 2003 legislative sessions. The bills are focused on strategies that increase access to healthy food and opportunities for including physical activity into one's daily routine. Specifically, bills can be searched by the following topics: agriculture, bike/pedestrian, coalition/council, direct marketing, farm-to-school, farmers' market, land use/smart growth, nutrition, obesity, obesity-childhood, physical activity, supermarket and transportation. The database can be searched by state and topic. In addition to the bill number and summary, each entry includes dates of introduction and last action, sponsor and bill status.
State Legislation and Statutes Database - Health Promotion
This database contains summaries of state legislation on a variety of health promotion strategies. It includes legislation from 1998 - 2005. Bills can be searched by topics including arthritis, chronic disease, heart disease, diabetes, food tax, nutrition, obesity, physical education, tobacco, and worksite wellness.
Childhood Obesity - 2005 Update and Overview of Policy Options
This publication provides information on the topic of childhood obesity. It includes a review prevalent legislative approaches considered or enacted in 2005.
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