Policy-making process to improve city food environments: "Champions" and Challenges

To assess the success of community based approaches to addressing food disparities, this paper seeks to evaluate the process and outcome of policy change regarding 2 sources of community food “bads”- 1) vending machines on city property and 2) vendor trucks. In 2005, the Healthy Eating, Active Communities collaborative in Santa Ana, CA began working toward policy change in these two food environments. This collaborative engaged several community partners including county, school district, community organizations, youth and city staff. The data regarding vending machines on city property was collected via assessing the policy language, conducting elite interviews, and assessing the foods sold in vending machines. The research involved in the vendor truck issue included an assessment of the policy process and legal battles leading up to a potential change in policy. Two years later, baseline evaluation data is available for both attempted interventions. First, this paper evaluates the policy-making process of passing and implementing a city-wide vending machine ordinance. Second, the paper examines the complexity of the policy-making process regarding vending trucks in the community. The outcome of this interdisciplinary collaborative approach to prevent obesity relied heavily on the ability of city elected officials and staff to “champion” these changes to the food environment. ->