Improving School Food Environments Through District-Level Policies: Findings from Six California Case Studies: Findings from Six California Case Studie

Publication Date: July 2006

Publisher: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Author(s):

Research Area: Health

Type: Report

Abstract:

During the last three decades the obesity rate among America's children has risen dramatically, and a major culprit is poor nutrition. Unfortunately, the places that should teach our children healthy eating habits and provide them with healthy foods-their schools-are all too frequently doing just the opposite.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the California Endowment funded a series of case studies that offer valuable insight into what school districts are doing to enact system-wide nutrition policies, policies that provide young people with healthy, nutritious and appealing alternatives to the ubiquitous junk food diet. This report documents the experience of six California school districts as they developed and implemented policies aimed at reducing the availability of unhealthy foods on campus.

Six unified school districts participated in the case studies: San Francisco, Capistrano, Eureka City, Hemet, Los Angeles and Oakland. The studies, conducted in 2004, required analysis of the individual policies adopted, site visits to 23 high schools and middle schools to assess their food and beverage environments, and surveys of all involved in the process.

Collectively, the results offer new insights into the various strategies schools have pursued to restrict sales of unhealthy foods and how the experience can inform future efforts elsewhere. The experience in California shows that support can be rapidly mobilized for policies that lead to a reduction, if not the immediate elimination of, unhealthy foods in the school environment.

Although evicting sodas, French fries and candy bars from the school campus alone won't solve the childhood obesity epidemic; improving the school nutrition environment is one way our communities can start building the momentum for changing the cultural forces that are at the root of the obesity epidemic.