Stop & Shop will be the first grocery retailer to participate in the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s Roundtable on Obesity Solutions. Stop & Shop President Gordon Reid, who will serve as committee advisor from the grocery retail sector, will lead Stop & Shop’s participation.
He will work alongside experts from fields such as public policy, health, medicine and education to develop sustainable, system-wide solutions to combat the obesity epidemic.
“More than 40 percent of American adults and nearly 20 percent of American children are affected by obesity, according to the CDC. As a grocery retailer serving communities across the Northeast, Stop & Shop has a responsibility to do our part to help solve this national health crisis,” Reid said. “Providing insights into how retailers can make healthy decisions easier for our communities will be key in developing a holistic solution.”
The Roundtable on Obesity Solutions’ work will focus on the impact of health equity, health communication and access to healthy options in reducing obesity while determining causation and correlation to larger socioeconomic impacts, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, health and medical access, health inequities and historic health disparities. Stop & Shop will present and discuss strategies for alleviating food insecurity and integrating healthy grocery options into the broader system changes that are needed to reduce the prevalence of obesity in the community.
Stop & Shop’s participation in the Roundtable is part of the grocery retailer’s larger health and sustainability strategy. In addition to its work with NASEM, Stop & Shop announced in 2020 a commitment to increase healthy product sales through its work with Partnership for a Healthier America. Alongside PHA, a national nonprofit working to transform the food landscape in pursuit of health equity, Stop & Shop has committed to increasing healthier food sales through its Guiding Stars Program.
Guiding Stars helps consumers choose foods with the most nutritional value through an easy-to-understand rating system. Additionally, Stop & Shop has committed that by June 2025, at least 54 percent of all private brands food sales will achieve at least a one, two or three-star rating through the Guiding Stars Program.
Stop & Shop will participate in the Roundtable on Obesity Solutions through 2022 and beyond to help develop long-term strategies and solutions to reduce obesity and promote improved health outcomes in the communities it serves. For more information on Stop & Shop’s health and sustainability efforts, visit stopandshop.com/pages/sustainability.
Based in Quincy, Massachusetts, the Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. LLC is an Ahold Delhaize USA company and employs 58,000 associates and operates more than 400 stores throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey.
The National Academies of Science, Engineering & Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, technology and medicine. They operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Abraham Lincoln.
