WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two universities, in Tennessee and Utah, each received a $1 million USDA grant Nov. 23 to support nutrition education and obesity prevention for disadvantaged children and families.

The funding, from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), helps establish Regional Nutrition Education and Obesity Prevention Centers of Excellence at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and Utah State University in Logan. Their main concern is childhood obesity rates, which tripled in the last 30 years, according to USDA.

“While we are beginning to see promising signs of progress with the epidemic leveling off in children, these grants will help evaluate and strengthen existing nutrition education and obesity prevention efforts to help ensure this progress continues,” said Sonny Ramaswamy, NIFA director.

The two centers will identify impacts and possible improvements in nutrition education through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP). They join four regional centers funded in 2014, including the North Central Nutrition Education Center of Excellence at Purdue University and a national coordination center at the University of Kentucky.

The centers aim to identify how different nutrition assistance and education programs best work together to improve the nutrition of disadvantaged children and families. Nutrition education programs reach people in six settings, or “interventions,” according to Jennifer McCaffrey, assistant dean, University of Illinois Family and Consumer Science Extension and Outreach. Interventions include schools, early childhood learning centers, community-based adult and youth groups, emergency food distribution centers and food retail outlets.

McCaffrey and her colleagues at U of I received funding from the center at Purdue to study how nutrition education programs work together in Illinois. “What we do not know is how people interact across those interventions,” she explained.

The study, launched in November, will compare SNAP and EFNEP participant weight and body mass index with actual food use and purchases, as recorded on store receipts and participant logs. Data will be collected and analyzed through 2016. The researchers hope the project helps improve nutrition education and inform nutrition policy in Illinois, according to McCaffrey.

Dr. Ann Vail, director of the National Coordination Center at the University of Kentucky, reported in September progress at the four centers established in 2014. “All centers have thoughtfully assembled teams of well‐qualified faculty and staff, established websites, submitted continuation proposals and begun Signature Research Programs,” she said.

The 2014 farm bill required that NIFA create Centers of Excellence in research, extension and education in the food and agricultural sciences. These centers receive government research funding priority.