Getting Started on Quality Nutrition in Schools

Ensure That Students Have Appealing, Healthy Food and Beverage Choices In Schools

• School district officials can review their district’s local wellness policy and monitor and evaluate its implementation.
• School district officials can review their food service and food and beverage vendor contracts, and work with their vendors to offer healthier options. 
• Policy-makers at all levels can champion state, district or school policies that prohibit the sale or distribution of high-fat, high-sugar snacks during school celebrations, before or during mealtimes and as fundraisers.
• Local government and school officials can partner with universities to provide assistance in implementing and evaluating local wellness policies. For example, local health departments and school districts can work with public health professors to recruit students interested in evaluating such policies. 
• School district officials can develop policies encouraging cafeterias to display healthy side items and snacks at eye level on shelves and positioned near the point of purchase. Additionally, they can request that cafeterias move less healthy options to the back of food displays. 
• School district officials can encourage individual schools to work with parents and extracurricular groups to implement healthy fundraisers. 
• State policy-makers can provide funding to schools for nutrition education in the context of health education and for investing in improvements to school food services, such as oil-free cooking equipment. 
• School district officials can convene a school wellness committee to develop an action plan to meet measurable goals related to nutritious foods and health education. They can invite local chefs and nutrition and health experts to serve on the committee.

Support Farm-to-School and School Garden Programs

• State legislatures can fund pilot projects to implement farm-to-school programs and target schools with large numbers of vulnerable students.
• State and local agriculture departments can partner with local farmers or farming organizations, nearby universities and colleges, nonprofit organizations and the national Farm-to-School organization to develop a program.
• School officials can convene teachers from various disciplines to develop a curriculum that incorporates math, science, nutrition, physical education and other subjects into school garden activities. For example, students can develop and perform taste tests on food from the garden.
• School officials and community representatives can develop a team to support food service directors implementing farm-to-school activities.
• School officials can invite representatives from the farming community to serve on the school wellness committee. They can integrate locally grown foods into school food programs.

Implement a Standards-Based Health Education Program Taught by Teachers Certified in Health Education

• School districts can establish a partnership between the school wellness committee and the local health department to ensure school curricula meet state and national health education standards and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations for effective health education.
• School wellness committees can use the Health Education Curriculum Analysis Tool to review a current or new health education curricula to determine if it aligns with state or national standards and criteria for effectiveness.
• School district officials can ensure health teachers have access to resources and support (local, national and Web-based) to develop and teach the curriculum.