Abstract
Beginning with the school year 2006–2007, U.S. school districts participating in the federal Child Nutrition Programs were required to adopt and implement a local wellness policy (LWP) that included goals and/or standards for nutrition education, school meals, other foods sold or served in schools, and physical activity. A primary challenge with LWPs has been inconsistent implementation. This study examined whether state wellness policy requirement laws and district LWP comprehensiveness influence district level implementation, using law/policy data from the National Wellness Policy Study and school food authority (SFA)-reported district LWP implementation from the School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study. Generalized linear and structural equation models were used, controlling for SFA and district characteristics. SFAs in states with wellness policy requirement laws (vs. those in states without) reported implementing significantly more practices (59.56% vs. 44.57%, p < 0.01). State wellness policy requirement laws were associated with district LWP comprehensiveness (coeff.: 0.463; 95% CI: 0.123, 0.803) and district-level implementation (coeff.: 1.392; 95% CI: 0.299, 2.485). District LWP comprehensiveness was associated with district implementation (coeff.: 0.562; 95% CI: 0.072, 1.053), but did not mediate the state law–district implementation relationship. This study highlights the important role that state laws and district LWPs can play in facilitating wellness policy implementation.
Highlights
Beginning with school year 2006–2007, all local education agencies (LEAs; school districts) in the United States that participated in the federal Child Nutrition Programs were required to adopt and implement a local wellness policy (LWP) [1]
Because LWPs are required of all LEAs participating in the federal school meal programs, and because school food authority (SFA) are responsible for oversight over those programs and reporting to the given state agency on district and school compliance with the federal Child Nutrition Program standards [76], Nutrients 2021, 13, 188 they play a pivotal role in helping LEAs to oversee LWP implementation and compliance
SFAs fully implemented slightly less than half (5.28) of the 11 possible items in our SFA wellness policy full implementation scale
Summary
Beginning with school year 2006–2007, all local education agencies (LEAs; school districts) in the United States that participated in the federal Child Nutrition Programs (including the National School Lunch Program and/or the School Breakfast Program) were required to adopt and implement a local wellness policy (LWP) [1]. Concurrent with the LWP final rule, the USDA updated and expanded its regulations governing each state agency’s administrative review process for local implementation of the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program to include state agency oversight regarding LWP adoption and implementation [4]. Since the original LWP mandate, there has been a patchwork of district LWPs and state laws governing the school wellness, health, nutrition, and physical activity environments in the United States [5,6,7,8]. A number of studies have documented the association between LWPs or components of the LWP (e.g., physical activity provisions or school food provisions) and concomitant school practices [30,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52] and/or student outcomes [19,53,54,55,56,57]
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