The authors of this research brief were co-principal investigators on a grant awarded by the IRP RIDGE Center for National Food and Nutrition Assistance Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in partnership with the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Their project, summarized here, was one of five proposals awarded funding in a 2011 national competition for research on food assistance programs, food choices, and obesity and other health outcomes. Since the Center's inception in 2010, it has funded 14 research projects, mentored seven visiting food assistance research scholars during one-week stays, and hosted seven seminars presenting recent innovative research. IRP RIDGE Center research comes at a time when enrollment in the nation's principal food assistance program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP (formerly Food Stamp Program), has more than doubled, from fewer than 19 million participants per month in 2001 to more than 47.5 million in October 2012. In recent years these increases have occurred in tandem with an unprecedented rise in the rate of food insecurity, which rose from 11.1 percent in 2007 to 14.6 percent in 2008, with the start of the Great Recession, and has remained at or near 14.6 percent since then. In their research, Taryn W. Morrissey, Alison Jacknowitz, and Katie Vinopal take a novel approach, examining how local food prices influence children's body mass index, overweight, food insecurity, and food consumption.