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Dairy Council Digest Archives
Creating a Healthy School Environment for Children
Summary
The school environment has a major impact on children's nutrition, physical activity, and academic performance. The need for a total school environment supportive of healthy lifestyle behaviors has never been greater. Childhood obesity and overweight are on the rise, the quality of many U.S. children's diets is poor, and their physical activity levels are low. These factors jeopardize children's health and ability to learn. Recognition of this situation is leading government, health, education, and industry organizations to take actions to ensure a healthy school environment.
Schools help improve children's health by offering school meal programs such as the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast Program (SBP). Participating in these programs significantly contributes to children's nutrient intake. The recently released School Nutrition Dietary Assessment Study II reveals that for all key nutrients, such as calcium, school meals met or exceeded program standards. Studies also demonstrate that participating in school meals is positively associated with students' academic performance.
Despite the nutritional and academic benefits of school meal programs, many children are deterred from participating. One reason is the increased access to foods sold in competition with school meals. Competitive foods are widely available on an a la carte basis in school cafeterias, or from school vending machines, school stores, or snack bars. Many of the foods sold are low in nutrient density and high in fat, added sugars, and calories.
Of concern is the increased availability and consumption of soft drinks in schools and the decline in milk intake. Excessive intake of soft drinks is associated with increased risk of nutrient shortfalls, bone fractures, dental caries and enamel erosion, and overweight. A new approach to increase students' milk and nutrient intake is to provide in-school milk vending machines. Preliminary findings demonstrate students' strong interest in vended milk, especially chocolate milk. The popularity of chocolate milk is noteworthy given recent findings that children who drink flavored milk have higher calcium intakes without increasing their overall intakes of fat and added sugar.
Many children are physically inactive and school-based physical activity and regularly scheduled recess have declined over the years. Being physically active can promote children's social well-being, physical health, and academic achievement. Schools are therefore encouraged to offer daily physical activity including instructional physical education, co-curricular activities, and recess.
Challenges related to achieving healthier school environments are being addressed. Various groups are collaborating to recommend and implement solutions to improve students' educational performance through better nutrition and physical activity in schools. An example of this collaborative approach is the recently held Healthy Schools Summit, which brought together education and health leaders to develop specific actions to create a healthy school environment.
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