School Wellness Policies: A Key Leverage Point for Improving School Wellness Environment

Each school district in New Hampshire and Vermont is required by Federal law to have a district Wellness Policy addressing standards for nutrition and physical activity, and outlining a process by which policies will be evaluated over time.  Each District is also required to maintain a Wellness Committee that, by law, must include administrators, educators, parents, students, and other community representation.

Because policies tend to be longer lasting than programs or curriculum, and because they provide broad parameters for the activities that occur in each school environment, Wellness Policies are a key focus for schools looking to improve the wellness environment of their schools.

Resources for Developing Effective School Wellness Policies

Action For Healthy Kids Wellness Policy Planning Tool: 

Action for Healthy Kids provides an outstanding resource for schools who are at any stage of planning, implementing, and evaluating school wellness policies.  This web site offers comprehensive recommendations for each stage in the policy development process, including a searchable database of policy language from schools around the United States, and links to a wide variety of Wellness Policy related topics

Eat Smart Move More North Carolina Recommended Standards for All Foods Available in School and Recommended Standards for Physical Activity in Schools:

Eat Smart Move More North Carolina provides a comprehensive set of guidelines for thinking about school wellness policies as they relate to nutrition and physical activity.  Included in this document are policy recommendations for Pre-K through Grade 5; Grades 6-8; and Grades 9-12.  A nice feature of this guide is that it provides an array of policy choices on a “Needs Improvement – Basic-Proficient-Superior” scale that allows users to rate the strength of their own policies and make informed choices of viability vs. policy value.