| Wellness
Policy Making: Advice from the Trenches
On a majority (but not unanimous!) vote,
our local school district's new wellness policy was recently approved.
All US school districts, that receive food service funding, are
mandated to create a wellness policy by August 2006.
Although our board failed to agree on
a few issues, the overall policy represents a good start toward
raising district and community consciousness of the importance of
good student health (You can see our policy here
if you are looking for a sample to get started). For me - as a school
board member - the evolution of the policy proved another learning
experience. This month I'd like to share some suggestions that may
be helpful to those of you who still have time to give input on
your district's wellness policy.
As I mentioned last month, wellness proponents
need to be prepared to respond to people who believe that student
health is a parental, rather than a school responsibility. Board
and community members may argue that schools are only responsible
for academic preparation. They may not hold the broader view that
education is about preparing youngsters for life.
One way to address this opinion is to
show how physical activity and improved health can effectively contribute
to the academic performance of students. Perhaps the best way to
do this is to point out, with supporting evidence (see last
month's editorial), that healthy students do better in school.
There's no real need to debate whether or not student health should
be a parental, rather than a school responsibility. Unhealthy students,
regardless of the cause, are less likely to do well academically.
Physical activity and nutrition standards
form the two major components of these new school wellness policies.
State-mandated physical education requirements should be included
here. This move will empower physical education proponents in districts
where administrators have, in the past, chosen to ignore state laws.
With regard to physical activity, NASPE, the CDC, and the American
Academy of Pediatrics are all recommending that students participate
in daily physical activity.
Should our profession use this opportunity
to push for daily physical education? That’s debatable. Most
school districts are in no position to offer a daily physical education
curriculum. An alternative, and likely more successful, approach
might be to suggest ways that classroom teachers can integrate physical
activity into the learning of their academic content. Personally,
I believe that physical education specialists should redefine their
role to include responsibility, as physical activity facilitators.
Developing minimal healthy nutrition
standards for school meals is relatively simple. Meals should meet
USDA guidelines. But some districts have chosen to go much farther
and offer new, and much healthier menus. You will have to assess
the motivation of your district food service director and cooks,
as well as opportunities and support for change.
A challenge that must be addressed is
'what to do about the competitive food menu?' The term "competitive
foods" refers to food choices students are offered in addition
to the regular school lunch program – the "a la carte"
menu. Allowing these foods to exceed USDA guidelines in fat content
undermines the consumption of more healthy school lunches.
What to do about vending machines stirs
considerable discussion. Some wellness committees may quickly conclude
that schools should not be profiting at the expense of student health.
They will argue that if vending machines don't have a positive impact
on either academic achievement or student health, they don't belong
in schools. Unfortunately, vending machine sales often support middle
and high school student activities. Resistance to removing vending
machines will likely be argued by those responsible for organizing
these activities.
Perhaps the best response to these (primarily
financial) concerns is to point to the many examples of school districts
nationwide that have either chosen alternative non-food related
fund raising methods, or kept the machines but changed the content.
In most cases revenues follow a predictable trend. Initially, when
choices are first changed revenue drops. It gradually picks back
up, returning to previous levels and sometimes higher.
Recently, the American
Beverage Association (representing the nation's soft drink manufacturers)
recommended no soft drinks in elementary schools, and no sugared
soft drinks in middle schools. In high schools they recommended
that students be given choices that included all types of drinks,
but with no more than 50% of the selection consisting of soft drinks.
Simply implementing the ABA's recommendations would be a nutritional
improvement in many school districts, but given the opportunity,
most nutritionists would probably advocate for including only water,
100% juice drinks, and milk.
Within our school board, my urging that
we completely eliminate soft drinks sparked debate. One member suggested
that the school's mission should be to teach children how to make
healthy choices, rather than to eliminate choice. On the surface
this idea sounds reasonable. Certainly schools should attempt to
help students become good decision-makers on a whole range of issue.
But, a dilemma arises when this idea
is translated into practice. Aren't we role models? Is it really
okay to continue offering unhealthy food or beverage choices, because
the district is teaching students to make healthy choices? How can
a student make healthy choices when the district continues to offer
unhealthy options? I questioned the logic of this thinking in a
short memo I wrote my board colleagues. You can read it here.
If you have the opportunity to participate
in school district wellness policy making this year, I highly recommend
the following resources:
Finally, it would be great to hear from
readers who have advice or experiences to share on the challenges
of school wellness policy making. E-mail
PELINKS4U with comments and suggestions that we can share in a future
issue. Together, maybe this year we can make a difference on the
impact this important piece of legislation has on the health of
students in our schools.
Steve Jefferies, Publisher
PELINKS4U
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