Survey Finds Parents Clueless about New School Wellness Policies

From: Health and Healthcare in Schools

October 2005

Most parents don't have a clue that their schools are required by federal law to have comprehensive wellness policies in place by the beginning of the 2006 school year, and most parents seriously over-estimate what their schools are currently doing about nutrition and physical activity, according to a new national survey of parents of school-aged children conducted by Action for Healthy Kids, a consortium of more than 50 national organizations and state and local government agencies.

A "Healthy Schools Summit 2005" convened in Washington September 27 and 28 called attention to those and other problems and offered some high-level suggestions for what to do about the situation. The new survey shows that "Parents have their priorities straight when it comes to a strong nutrition and physical activity focus in our schools," said Action for Healthy Schools chairman William Potts-Datema, director of Partnerships for Children's Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. "But we must do a better job of informing them of the current situation and find ways to give them voices as advocates for healthier environments within our schools."

Among the parental misconceptions:

The Action for Healthy Kids survey found that nearly two-thirds of parents support restricting access to high-calorie, low-nutrient snack foods; and half of the parents surveyed felt their children's schools are doing "excellent" to "good" jobs in this area. But a study released last week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that 90 percent of schools allow students to purchase snack foods or beverages from vending machines or at the school store, canteen, or snack bar, with "less nutritious" foods and beverages making up the majority of those sales.

The Action for Healthy Kids survey found that 77 percent of parents support daily physical education for all children; and 62 percent rate their children's schools as "excellent" or "good" at making daily physical education available to all students. In reality, only 5.8 percent to 8 percent of schools nationally provide students with daily physical education, according to Action for Healthy Kids.

But possibly the most serious disconnect between parents and schools may be occurring with respect to the requirement for school wellness policies mandated in the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004, which requires that all school districts participating in the national school lunch or breakfast programs have local wellness policies in place before the 2006 school year. Despite the fact that the law specifies that parents, among other key stakeholders, must be involved from the beginning in designing those district policies, 83 percent of the parents in the Action for Healthy Kids survey were totally unaware of the new mandate.

The September conference in Washington released two documents to support the urgency of clearing up current misunderstandings—a fact sheet on childhood obesity that defines poor eating habits and lack of physical activity as "root causes" of overweight and obesity, and a backgrounder of information about the school wellness policies that describes the specific elements the policies must contain and their implications for local school districts.

The obesity fact sheet notes that:

Nine million children are overweight.
Childhood obesity is more prevalent among minority populations, specifically Mexican-American boys, African-American girls, Hispanic youths in grades 9-12, and American-Indian seven-year-olds.
Ninety-eight percent of 6-18-year-olds report eating at least three snacks a day and 50 percent report more than five snacks daily.
Fewer than 25 percent of American children get at least 30 minutes of any type of physical activity every day.

The school wellness policies backgrounder points out that:

The law requires that parents and students, plus representatives of the school food authority, the school board, school administrators, and the public, must be involved in the policy development process.
No direct federal funding is available for policy implementation, but outside sources such as health insurance providers, private foundations, community organizations, and government agencies are possible sources of support if needed.
Federal regulations that currently dictate various aspects of school policy remain in place (federally reimbursed school meals must meet certain nutrition standards, for example), but each school district still must establish a wellness policy of its own that reflects the unique needs of that district.
Areas for evaluation and consideration in the development of policies might include nutrition education, wellness training and activities for staff, physical education requirements for graduation, mealtime environments, foods and beverages sold in competition with the school lunch programs, and a variety of other school health approaches.

What the CDC Found

In an analysis of data from public secondary schools in 27 states and 11 large urban school districts, published in the September 23 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that in 2004, between 81.5 percent (the median across large urban districts) and 89.5 percent (the median across states) of middle and high schools allowed students to purchase snack foods or beverages from vending machines or at the school store, canteen, or snack bar. Although the majority of schools offered some nutritious foods and beverages in these settings, the majority also offered less nutritious choices, including candy, high-fat snacks, soft drinks, sport drinks, and fruit drinks not 100 percent juice.

The only federal regulations regarding the sale of competitive foods in schools prohibit access to foods of minimum nutritional value in food-service areas during meal times. Foods such as potato chips, chocolate bars, and doughnuts are not considered "foods of minimum nutritional value" and can be sold in the cafeteria or elsewhere at any time. The CDC notes, however, that some states, and many school districts, have more stringent rules of their own. The CDC calls attention to a Department of Agriculture publication, "Making It Happen: School Nutrition Success Stories" that describes some of those locally mandated programs. It is available online at www.cdc.govgov/healthyyouth/nutrition/making-it-happen/index.htm.

Former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher is a founding chair of the Skokie, Illinois-based non-profit Action for Healthy Kids and its Partner Steering Committee includes a wide range of national medical and educational associations. A list of member organizations and information about the coming requirement for school wellness policies is available at www.ActionForHealthyKids.org.