Center for Health Promotion and Prevention Research
Project
Brighter Bites
Project Overview
View the BrighterBites.org website
Project Overview
Brighter Bites delivers fresh fruits and vegetables directly into families’ hands, while teaching them how to use and choose a different kind of fast food. We make it fun. We make it free. And we make it happen via a simple, three-part formula:
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Bring fresh produce to where kids already are.
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Teach kids and families healthy ways to use their food.
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Create a fun food experience for everyone involved.
Since its inception in 2012, Brighter Bites has delivered millions of pounds of fresh produce and nutrition education to children and families in multiple cities.
Current UTHealth School of Public Health Staff:
- Shreela Sharma, PhD
- Greg Bounds, MPH
- Krista Patlovich, MPH
Project Details
Brighter Bites aims to impact eating behavior among predominantly low-income families by introducing them to a routine distribution of fresh produce, along with corresponding education, ultimately helping to curb the childhood obesity epidemic in Houston and Dallas. Brighter Bites is an opportunity to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to children and their families through weekly recyclable bags of 50 servings of produce sent home with families in areas identified as food deserts, combined with nutrition education for children and their families over a 16-week program.
- Engage communities
- Select the week's variety
- Load up
- Bag the produce
- Teach brighter choices
- Sample & share
- Take home the fun
- Replicate
Researchers at the UTHealth School of Public Health conducted a two-year study evaluating the impact of Brighter Bites on 760 students and their families at nine schools in Houston during the 2013-15 school years. Results from this study have been published in a scientific peer-reviewed journal called Preventive Medicine.
Suffice it to say, science finally proves what we’ve suspected all along: Brighter Bites works—and works well.
Study results show that, as compared to participants in the control group (not receiving Brighter Bites), children and parents who did receive Brighter Bites demonstrated:
HEALTHIER HABITS
Significant increase in amount of fruits and vegetables consumed.
LESS ADDED SUGAR
Significant decrease in amount of added sugars consumed among children.
MORE HOME COOKING
Twofold increase in cooking meals from scratch
HEALTHIER SNACKING
Significant increase in serving more fruits and vegetables as snacks.
MORE FAMILY MEALS
Significant increase in eating produce-heavy meals together at home
SMARTER DECISIONS
Twofold increase in using nutrition labels to guide grocery purchases
PRESENTATIONS
Alcazar, L., Sharma, S. (November 2016). Brighter Bites Photovoice: Perspectives from Hispanic participating parents towards the Brighter Bites program. Oral presentation at the American Public Health Association 2016 Annual Meeting in Denver, CO.
Sharma, S., Markham, C., Chow, J., Ranjit, N., Pomeroy, M., & Raber, M. (November 2016). A comparative effectiveness study of Brighter Bites: A food co-op intervention to improve access to fresh F&V and nutrition education among low-income children and families. Oral presentation at the American Public Health Association 2016 Annual Meeting in Denver, CO.
Pomeroy, M. (November 2016). Brighter Bites: Implementing a Food Co-op Concept in Underserved Schools. Oral Presentation at the Southern Obesity Summit in Houston, TX.
Past, Present and Future of SNAP: Evaluating Effectiveness and Outcomes in SNAP-Ed: Hearings before the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives, 114th Cong. (June 2016) (Testimony of Shreela Sharma, PhD, RD, LD).
Sharma, S., Markham, C., Chow, J., Pomeroy, M., & Raber M. (October 2015). Efficacy of Brighter Bites: a School-Based Food Co-op Intervention. Poster presentation at The Obesity Society Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA.
Sharma, S., Markham, C. Helfman, L., Albus, K., Chuang, R.J., & Pomeroy, M. (May 2014). Feasibility and acceptability of Brighterbites, a program increasing access to fresh fruits and vegetables and nutrition education among low-income children and their families. Poster presented at the International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA.
Albus, K., Sharma, S., Markham, C., Helfman, L., & Pomeroy, M. (May 2014). Process evaluation of Brighter Bites pilot study: A community-academic partnership promoting fruit and vegetable intake among low-income, minority populations. Oral presentation at the International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA.
Project Staff
Project personnel are listed below. Click on a name to view the individual profile.
