School Administrators for HEALing of Our Children and Youth

AASA is a grantee of Leadership for Healthy Communities—a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. With a two-year grant from AASA seeks to build supportive relationships among superintendents on competitive food policy. We’re creating mentor/mentee groups by state and/or region between current superintendents whose districts have strong competitive food policies with superintendents whose districts do not have strong competitive food policies.

The over goal of this initiative is to increase the number of school districts with strong competitive food policies.

What are competitive foods?

The term “competitive foods” refers to any food or beverage sold outside of the Federal meal program. These include foods sold in a la carte lines, vending machines, and school stores.

With childhood obesity reaching epidemic rates, it is now more important than ever to focus on creating a healthy school nutrition environment. The Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010 will help school system leaders with their intent to optimize student health by offering healthier school breakfasts and lunches. While we are still waiting on the federal regulations for competitive foods, now is a great time to get ahead of the curve by adopting strong competitive food policies and learning from those exemplifying best practices. You can help lead this effort.

Resources

For more information on competitive foods, please refer to the following resources:

- Bag the Junk: Improving competitive food policy to create healthier, smarter school environments. NEAHIN, 2012. http://www.neahin.org/assets/pdfs/bag-the-junk-10-2012.pdf

- Health Impact Assessment National Nutrition Standards for Snack and a la Carte Foods and Beverages Sold in Schools. Kids’ Safe & Healthful Foods Project. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2012. http://www.healthimpactproject.org/resources/body/KS-HIA_ExSum.pdf

- How Competitive Foods in Schools Impact Student Health, School Meal Programs, and Students from Low-Income Families. FRAC, 2010. http://frac.org/pdf/CNR05_competitivefoods.pdf

- Institute of Medicine, Food and Nutrition Board. Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention: Solving the Weight of the Nation 2012 Available at: http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=13275.

- Peart, T et al. Does Competitive Food and Beverage Legislation Hurt Meal Participation or Revenues in High Schools? Childhood Obesity. August 2012, Vol 8, Number 4. http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/chi.2012.0009