Salud America!
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Research
Network to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children
SUCCESS STORY: 2013
Healthier Check-Out Aisles at the
Wal-Mart in Anderson, Calif.
Latinos are the largest minority group in Anderson, a small city in northern California’s Shasta County. Already
heavily targeted by junk food advertisements on TV, Latino children face the temptation of unhealthy foods
every day, and grocery store check-out lines can be one of the toughest spots for kids to make healthy choices.
In the fall of 2006, concerned Anderson students decided to take a stand against junk food in check-out aisles,
and their impact rippled into many grocery stores across the country.
EMERGENCE
Awareness: A group of middle-schoolers in Anderson saw the daily struggle they and their peers faced at the
grocery and convenience stores: a lot of junk food options at the check-out aisles. They were fed up with how
the placement and heavy promotion of these unhealthy products encouraged kids to eat poorly—a poor diet
is one of the biggest contributors to obesity and its related health complications.
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Learn: Already involved in Healthy Eating
Active Communities (HEAC), an after-school
program by The California Endowment that
guides youth through advocating for healthy
changes in their communities, the youth had
seen how they could make impactful
changes themselves. They had already
helped get better parks in the area. Now
they wanted to learn how to improve
healthy food options in neighborhood stores.
To learn what snacks were definitively
healthy or not, HEAC staff helped the youth
learn about the right levels of sugar, fat, and
salt for a healthy body. The kids learned how The group, "Kids Make a Stand," present their research to Wal-Mart.
to properly read snack nutrition labels to
Source: Anderson Valley Post
figure out exactly how much one portion size http://www.andersonvalleypost.com/photos/2007/jun/12/3608/
is versus the whole package, something
confusing even for adults. They also discussed how junk food not only affects kids’ bodies, but also their
minds, leading to decreased concentration in school. Part of the learning process was actually going into local
stores and surveying what the check-out aisles were offering. They founds that the overwhelming majority of
snacks were chips, candy, chocolate, and lots of salty junk.
Frame Issue: The youth set out on a journey to get junk food out of check-out aisles and stands in stores in
their community—an initiative they called “Kids Make a Stand.” Little did they know that their efforts would
bring them face-to-face with the country’s largest grocer.
DEVELOPMENT
Education/Mobilization: After their research, the kids reached out to a handful of food retailers in the area to
see if any of them shared the same concerns for the health of young people. The first store manager who
agreed to meet with the students was Tim Trimble, manager of the Wal-Mart in Anderson. As the youth
presented their idea, they asked Trimble some bold questions, said Christine Haggard, the Shasta County
Public Health Department’s community organizer that worked with the kids.
“They asked him ‘Don’t you care about the kids in your community? Don’t you want them to have good energy
and better test scores?’ But Mr. Trimble, being a father of four children himself, did not take much
convincing,” Haggard said.
Debate: Trimble was personally on-board with the kids’ requests, but he had some professional limitations.
He explained that due to long-term contracts with manufacturers, Wal-Mart could not offer an entirely junk
food-free check-out stand/aisle. However, Trimble said he could pilot a check-out stand that included less junk
food and more healthy options. The students were satisfied with this, but Trimble had a few more requests.
Better Food in Neighborhoods
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ENACTMENT
Activation: For the pilots to become permanent, Trimble said the stands had to meet a few conditions: the
display had to be designed to meet Wal-Mart standards, the students had to conduct customer surveys to
show they had at least 10% customer support, and the healthy options would have to show an increase in
sales. “It sounded like a lot, but the students were determined and convinced that they had community
support,” said Sheryl Brophy Vietti, a community development coordinator for Shasta County Public Health.
Trimble also asked the kids to come up with the specific healthy snacks that they would want to see in the
new aisles and nutritional guidelines for Wal-Mart to follow.
Frame policy: To come up with solid nutritional standards, the kids worked with a registered dietician,
modeling their standards after the California nutrition standards for school food. For a snack to be accepted, it
must have 5 grams or less of fat, no trans-fat, 30 grams or less of carbohydrates, 500 milligrams or less of
sodium, and 3 or more grams of fiber per serving.
The students got access to four of the eight spots on the aisles to fill with the healthy snacks of their choosing.
Wal-Mart was unable to completely remove the candy display from the healthier checkout stands due to
corporate contracts. Yet, the students brought in some tasty and healthy competition: granola bars, jerky,
low-fat muffins, nuts, 100 calorie pack crackers, raisins, yogurt-covered raisins, raisins, trail mix, dried fruit,
applesauce, rice cakes, and animal crackers. The students also spent time designing the new stands and
addressing Wal-Mart’s standards.
Wal-Mart staff eventually cleared the kids’ design and began to reconfigure the aisles, putting up the studentcrafted “Kid Healthy Choices” signs to indicate which check-out stands have healthier snacks.
Change: Finally, in Spring 2007, Wal-Mart staff had built two stands according to the kids’ specifications—
beginning the test to see if a business could offer healthy foods and turn a profit at the same time.
Trimble and the students quickly found their answer: the success of the healthy stands was immediate. Sales
doubled and staff constantly had to restock items like granola bars, applesauce, and trail mix.
There was such overwhelming customer support that Wal-Mart called off the customer surveys after two
weeks because they were only reiterating what the huge increase in sales was saying: that people were going
crazy for all the healthy snacks.
IMPLEMENTATION
Implementation/Equity: Following the initial success of the healthy food options, the Anderson Wal-Mart
expanded the healthier stands into more aisles. A third display has since been added, along with refrigerated
“cold boxes” offering 100% fruit juices, low-fat yogurt, and fresh fruits and dips such as sliced apples and
peanut butter.
They even put up a storefront display so all customers were aware of the healthier options available to them.
Better Food in Neighborhoods
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Sustainability: The healthier snacks created such a demand that they drew the attention of media and of
neighboring Wal-Mart managers, including one as far away as Indiana. Trimble’s hope is that if kids can eat
healthy and aren’t challenged by sugar at the register, they can carry that healthy feeling into school and truly
be ready to learn.
Have you seen the ripples of these students’ bold moves in a Wal-Mart or grocery store near you?
This success story was produced by Salud America! with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The stories are intended for educational and informative purposes. References to specific policymakers,
individuals, schools, policies, or companies have been included solely to advance these purposes and do not
constitute an endorsement, sponsorship, or recommendation. Stories are based on and told by real community
members and are the opinions and views of the individuals whose stories are told. Organization and activities
described were not supported by Salud America! or the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and do not
necessarily represent the views of Salud America! or the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Salud America! The RWJF Research Network to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children is a national program
of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The program aims to educate researchers, decision-makers,
community leaders, and the public in contributing toward healthier Latino communities and seeking
environmental and policy solutions to the epidemic of Latino childhood obesity. The network is directed by
the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
For more information, visit http://www.salud-america.org.
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