Keyword: Sugar-sweetened beverages

Early Effects of the Federally Mandated Local Wellness Policy on School Nutrition Environments Appear Modest in Colorado’s Rural, Low-Income Elementary Schools

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This paper describes the initial influence of Local Wellness Policies (LWPs) on the school nutrition environments and policies in lower-income, rural Colorado elementary schools. Overall, the researchers found that the LWPs were weakly worded and rarely addressed energy content, but researchers observed three improvements after the LWP mandate went into effect: 1) an increase in More

Lessons Learned from Evaluations of California’s Statewide School Nutrition Standards

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This article evaluates the impact of legislation that established nutrition standards for competitive foods in California schools. Researchers found that regulation of competitive foods modestly improved school environments and student nutritional intake. Availability of nutrition standard-compliant foods and beverages increased, while availability of noncompliant items decreased. The authors conclude, however, that additional policies are needed More

Understanding School Leaders’ Perspective of the Barriers and Facilitators in Making Free Water Available in Schools

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Water, as a beverage replacement for sugar-sweetened beverages, is a promising school-based obesity prevention strategy. Implemented in July 2011, California Senate Bill 1413 (SB1413) requires schools to provide free, fresh drinking water during mealtimes in school food service areas. This research project examined barriers and facilitators that influence the availability of free water in school More

The Rationale Behind Small Food Store Interventions in Low-Income Urban Neighborhoods: Insights from New Orleans

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This paper explores the rationale behind small store interventions by pulling together various studies in health, planning, and marketing literature and pilot work conducted in New Orleans. The authors discuss store and food availability in lower-income neighborhoods and how changing the foods available in stores can affect purchasing behavior, diet and the economics of local More

Taxing Soft Drinks and Restricting Access to Vending Machines to Curb Child Obesity

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This paper focused on the impact changes in soft drink taxes and policies restricting school vending machine access had on soda consumption among children and adolescents. The researchers used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) III (1988-1994) and IV (1999-2006) and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K). They concluded that More

Child Obesity: The Way Forward

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Health Affairs published a special issue focusing on the childhood obesity epidemic and the local, state, and federal policy approaches that could have greatest impact for helping to reverse it. The March 2010 publication, which discusses findings from dozens of studies, includes articles from three Healthy Eating Research grantees: Claudia Probart, PhD, RD, Emma Sanchez-Vaznaugh, ScD, More

‘Competitive’ Food and Beverage Policies: Are They Influencing Childhood Overweight Trends?

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This article explores whether new policies restricting ‘competitive’ foods and beverages in schools affected the increasing rates of overweight children in California. While the authors find that the rate of increase of overweight children did decrease significantly since the policies’ implementation, the extent to which the policies contributed to this rate of decrease in childhood More

Are ‘Competitive Foods’ Sold at School Making Our Children Fat?

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Competitive foods, or foods and beverages sold outside of the school lunch program, are often cited as a contributing factor to the high rates of childhood obesity in the U.S. This article reviews the current literature on the availability and nutritional content of competitive foods in schools and the effects of these foods on students’ More

Program Practices: An Investigation of Physical Activity and Healthy Eating Standards and Practices on Out-of-School-Time Programs

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In the US, 6.5 million children attend out-of-school time (OST) programs annually, participating in roughly three hours per day of activities typically including homework, snack and gross motor play. The specific aims of this study are to: (1) build capacity for obesity prevention in OST by infusing rigorous science-based guidelines into the National Afterschool Association More