How well are we doing? Seven years of wellness policy progress nationwide

Background: Federal law requires school districts participating in federal child nutrition programs to adopt/implement a wellness policy (WP) as of school year (SY) 2006-07. This presentation examines the progress and factors associated with WP comprehensiveness and strength between SY 2006-07 and 2012-13.

Methods: On-the-books WP (and all associated regulations/embedded policies) were compiled for 1980 districts as part of the largest, annual cross-sectional nationwide WP evaluation. Policies were evaluated using an adaptation of WellSAT for: overall comprehensiveness-OC and strength-OS for 100+ items and separately for nutrition education-NE, school meals-SM, competitive foods-CF, physical education-PE, physical activity-PA, staff wellness-ST, communications-CM, marketing-MP, and evaluation-E. Possible scores ranged from 0-100. T-tests examined temporal trends; multivariate linear regressions examined characteristics (free/reduced-price lunch-FRL, region, locale, size) associated with changes.

Results: Comprehensiveness improved over time (p<.01): OC (32 to 45), NE (42 to 58), SM (32 to 45), CF (36 to 49), PE (25 to 38), PA (34 to 47), ST (19 to 30), CM (32 to 42), MP (17 to 24), and E (31 to 47). Most strength scores also improved but were lower (p<.01): OS (18 to 26), NE (29 to 37), SM (18 to 23), CF (10 to 16), PE (17 to 25), PA (22 to 30), and E (22 to 33). Factors associated with improvements included medium-large size, West region, and higher FRL.

Discussion: Significant progress has been made in wellness policy comprehensiveness and strength over time but improvements are limited to certain regions, SES, or locales and certain foci. More work is needed to ensure widespread progress nationwide.