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Draft School Nutrition Mini-Summaries
Members of the school health community and visitors to this web site are welcome to add their comments on these draft mini-summaries. Use the "thread" tool at the bottom of this page to post comments or respond to others. Use the "easy edit" tool at the top of the page to open up the document for editing. Just save the changes when you are finished. All versions of the document are stored on the system, so don't worry about lossing any of the previous text.
Mini-Summary: Multi-Intervention Programs in School Nutrition
Multiple school-based and school-linked interventions (policies, programs, services, practices) can promote healthy eating and prevent nutrition or dietary problems. Several interventions can be combined into "multi-intervention programs" and can be delivered through schools by educators and by other agencies, nutrition professionals, voluntary and community-based organizations as well as parents, students and volunteers. These interventions can be grouped into several elements, components or domains; including policy, instruction, preventive services, social supports and a healthy physical environment. Comprehensive approaches can link nutrition/diet to other health, social and economic issues such as mental health, poverty or physical activity and recognize that school-based efforts need to be supported by multi-level actions taken by school boards/health authorities and other agencies as well as health, education and other ministries/departments in governments and by research, monitoring and knowledge management organizations. Coordinated school nutrition programs delivered by education, health, social service and nutrition agencies can focus on nutrition in general or specific aspects such as over-eating, food safety, height/weight screening at age of school entry, disordered eating, food security and healthy dietary practices such as eating fruits/vegetables or reducing salt intake. Whole school strategies can combine efforts within the school such as policies on food sales and fund raising, nutrition education, student/school activities, parent involvement, healthy cafeterias, adequate time for eating lunch and staff wellness activities.
High quality research studies have reported short-term (1-3 years) changes to student nutrition knowledge, attitudes and some specific eating and physical activity behaviours as a result of multiple intervention school nutrition programs using comprehensive approaches, coordinated programs and whole school strategies delivered in controlled studies. However, these changes in knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours do not necessarily affect body weight or prevent overweight/obesity.These case studies are available in peer reviewed journals, literature reviews and systematic reviews. Authoritative reports and better practice guidelines have been published by governments, international agencies and school nutrition advocates. Good quality educational programs, curriculum guides, policy guidelines, school self-assessment tools and training materials are available from several countries. Current challenges related to these multi-intervention programs include implementation and sustainability, coordination between systems, agencies and professionals, maintaining a whole child, holistic view of nutrition and diet while addressing specific problems such as overweight/obesity, food security, food safety or other problems. Research challenges include; knowing more about systems readiness, performance and capacity, measurement questions in self-reporting vs direct measures, understanding the benefits to student learning and school effectiveness and how to influence life time eating habits.
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Mini-Summary: School Nutrition Policies
“School nutrition policy” includes policies, laws, regulations/by-laws and formal procedures promoted, adopted and implemented by national agencies/federal departments, health, education and other provincial/territorial ministries, health authorities and school boards, schools and professional guidelines/codes of conduct established relevant professions. Such policy-making organizations are governed by elected officials or appointed trustees who are required to report regularly to the public. Other agencies, such as schools or appointed officials can establish procedures, practices or programs that are similar to policy, but since they are not directly accountable to the public, they cannot be defined as public policy.
Most current research and popular references to “school nutrition policy” are actually referring to regulations on food sales and services in schools. However, school nutrition policy should be established in school, public health and other systems to cover several other topics, including:
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Mini-Summary: School Nutrition Activities
School nutrition activities create social support for healthy eating during and after the school day and in the evening. These activities engage students, staff and parents in learning about nutrition in a variety of ways. They include student cooking clubs after school, parent cooking classes in the evenings and special school events such as Health Fairs that feature healthy eating. These activities can be linked to the formal classroom as a co-curricular activity or as independent, extra-curricular activities. Regardless of the link to the curriculum, these activities are an important part of a comprehensive approach, coordinated school-agency programs and effective whole school strategies to promote healthy diet and nutrition. The goal of these activities is to increase social support for healthier behaviours, increase access to supportive social networks or to help to denormalize unhealthy behaviours or change normative beliefs. The types of programs that can be included in this school nutrition activities category include:
Mini-Summary: Multi-Intervention Programs in School Nutrition
Multiple school-based and school-linked interventions (policies, programs, services, practices) can promote healthy eating and prevent nutrition or dietary problems. Several interventions can be combined into "multi-intervention programs" and can be delivered through schools by educators and by other agencies, nutrition professionals, voluntary and community-based organizations as well as parents, students and volunteers. These interventions can be grouped into several elements, components or domains; including policy, instruction, preventive services, social supports and a healthy physical environment. Comprehensive approaches can link nutrition/diet to other health, social and economic issues such as mental health, poverty or physical activity and recognize that school-based efforts need to be supported by multi-level actions taken by school boards/health authorities and other agencies as well as health, education and other ministries/departments in governments and by research, monitoring and knowledge management organizations. Coordinated school nutrition programs delivered by education, health, social service and nutrition agencies can focus on nutrition in general or specific aspects such as over-eating, food safety, height/weight screening at age of school entry, disordered eating, food security and healthy dietary practices such as eating fruits/vegetables or reducing salt intake. Whole school strategies can combine efforts within the school such as policies on food sales and fund raising, nutrition education, student/school activities, parent involvement, healthy cafeterias, adequate time for eating lunch and staff wellness activities.
High quality research studies have reported short-term (1-3 years) changes to student nutrition knowledge, attitudes and some specific eating and physical activity behaviours as a result of multiple intervention school nutrition programs using comprehensive approaches, coordinated programs and whole school strategies delivered in controlled studies. However, these changes in knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours do not necessarily affect body weight or prevent overweight/obesity.These case studies are available in peer reviewed journals, literature reviews and systematic reviews. Authoritative reports and better practice guidelines have been published by governments, international agencies and school nutrition advocates. Good quality educational programs, curriculum guides, policy guidelines, school self-assessment tools and training materials are available from several countries. Current challenges related to these multi-intervention programs include implementation and sustainability, coordination between systems, agencies and professionals, maintaining a whole child, holistic view of nutrition and diet while addressing specific problems such as overweight/obesity, food security, food safety or other problems. Research challenges include; knowing more about systems readiness, performance and capacity, measurement questions in self-reporting vs direct measures, understanding the benefits to student learning and school effectiveness and how to influence life time eating habits.
******************************************************************************************************************************************************************
Mini-Summary: School Nutrition Policies
“School nutrition policy” includes policies, laws, regulations/by-laws and formal procedures promoted, adopted and implemented by national agencies/federal departments, health, education and other provincial/territorial ministries, health authorities and school boards, schools and professional guidelines/codes of conduct established relevant professions. Such policy-making organizations are governed by elected officials or appointed trustees who are required to report regularly to the public. Other agencies, such as schools or appointed officials can establish procedures, practices or programs that are similar to policy, but since they are not directly accountable to the public, they cannot be defined as public policy.
Most current research and popular references to “school nutrition policy” are actually referring to regulations on food sales and services in schools. However, school nutrition policy should be established in school, public health and other systems to cover several other topics, including:
- Overall philosophy, goals for nutrition, diet, healthy eating
- Defined roles/goals for their agency and employees as well as their role in working with others
- Food Security/School Meals
- Food services in schools (Minimum requirements for cafeterias, school meal programs, food handlling)
- Height & Weight Screening on school entry
- Nutrition education (Guidelines, obligatory and recommended learning objectives, obligation to inform parents)
- Nutritionist/Dietitian services (eg early identification and referral procedures, counselling services for overweight/obese children, role of community nutritionist in working with schools)
- Restricting or reducing sales of competitive (unhealthy) foods
- Promoting or subsidizing sales of healthy foods in schools
- Food Safety
- Food Allergies
- Food Production (Use of transfat, additives, food imports. modified food etc)
- Policies related to Social Norms (eg · advertising food to children near schools, food sales to children on outlets near schools, food at school events for children & parents, · fund raising activities involving children, sponsorship by food companies or food industries, school recognition programs, school gardening programs)
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Mini-Summary: School Nutrition Activities
School nutrition activities create social support for healthy eating during and after the school day and in the evening. These activities engage students, staff and parents in learning about nutrition in a variety of ways. They include student cooking clubs after school, parent cooking classes in the evenings and special school events such as Health Fairs that feature healthy eating. These activities can be linked to the formal classroom as a co-curricular activity or as independent, extra-curricular activities. Regardless of the link to the curriculum, these activities are an important part of a comprehensive approach, coordinated school-agency programs and effective whole school strategies to promote healthy diet and nutrition. The goal of these activities is to increase social support for healthier behaviours, increase access to supportive social networks or to help to denormalize unhealthy behaviours or change normative beliefs. The types of programs that can be included in this school nutrition activities category include:
- Student leadership programs (including advocacy for changes in school or community)
- Student Clubs and other Extra-curricular or after school programs
- Co-curricular activities (school, class or groups of students conducting projects that increase awareness about the issue. Health Fairs are an example of this type of activity.)
- Peer helper programs
- Mentoring programs (from adults or older students)
- Intergenerational programs
- Schools working closely with community-based, voluntary health and self-help organizations
- Schools working with local media, businesses, ethnic minority community organizations and new media organizations
dmccall |
Latest page update: made by dmccall
, Nov 4 2009, 7:20 PM EST
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Edited by dmccall
17 words added view changes - complete history) |
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