Wellness policies are improving competitive beverage environments in U.S. public elementary schools

Introduction: Unhealthy beverages are readily available in US schools. Beginning with 2006-07, school districts participating in federal child nutrition programs were required to implement wellness policies containing competitive food/beverage-related nutritional guidelines. This presentation provides the first nationwide evaluation of how wellness policies have improved competitive beverage environments.

Methods: Wellness policies were obtained annually from nationally-representative samples of US public school districts between 2006-07 and 2010-11 (N=1,242). Policies were coded for prohibitions on: regular soda, other SSBs, and 2%/whole milk. ES data on soda, SSB, and higher-fat milk availability were gathered via annual surveys from ES in these districts (N = 2,120 unique schools). Multivariate logistic regressions models were used that clustered on state, accounted for sampling of schools within districts, and controlled for year, ses, region, urbanicity, student race/ethnicity , school size, state laws, and state child obesity rates. Analyses were weighted to represent ES nationwide.

Results: Over the 5 years, 2%, 14% and 30% of ES had soda, other SSBs, and high-fat milk, respectively, in competitive beverage environments. 13%, 6% and 7% of schools were in districts (but not states) prohibiting sodas, SSBs, or higher-fat milks, respectively. Multivariate models indicated that the odds of offering SSBs and higher-fat milk were 58% (95% CI=.20, .89) and 44% (95% CI=.34, .92) lower in districts with a policy ban, respectively. Soda availability was too low (only 2% of schools) to be affected by district policy.

Conclusion: Wellness policies have reduced availability of high-fat and sugary beverages in US public elementary schools.