Using Child Care Regulations as a Policy Lever for Promoting Healthy Food and Physical Activity in Out-of-School Time Settings

State child care regulations establish important baseline protections for health and safety of children in non-parental care, and can also play a critical role in establishing norms around nutrition and physical activity for children and youth.  Many child care facilities also provide care for school age children and other out-of-school (OST) programs. But while many early learning settings are subject to regulations that include—or could include--nutrition and physical activity standards, many OST programs fall outside the scope of these regulations, or are only partially included.  This session will examine the potential capacity and limits of using child care licensing laws to promote healthy eating and physical activity in OST programs.  Building off the results of a 50 state review of child care licensing laws conducted in 2014 that identified nutrition, physical activity, and screen time standards in these laws, this session will describe how the research has been translated to support initiatives to implement healthy eating and physical activity standards for OST programs in Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, and Washington. Key results from the 50 state review will be highlighted to provide context.  The approaches and strategies used by each state to leverage child care licensing as a policy tool will be explained. Lessons learned from each state’s initiative will be shared. Tensions between the goals of ensuring quality programming that promotes good nutrition and ample physical activity and ensuring affordable, accessible programs for as many children and youth as possible also will be discussed.