Strategic Alliance
A strategic alliance has been formed to address the obesity epidemic in California. This alliance is composed of organizations committed to reducing preventable childhood obesity among California’s children. The alliance recommends action on the following agenda as a first step toward addressing childhood obesity in California.
1. Eliminate competitive foods in elementary schools.
2. Adopt new and enforceable nutritional standards for all competitive foods sold on middle and high school campuses.
3. Eliminate all soda sales and contracts with school districts, for students, teachers, and staff.
4. Eliminate advertising of unhealthy foods on school campuses.
5. Increase State reimbursement, drawn primarily from the current soda tax, for all the school meal programs and move toward universal feeding through an increase use of direct certification and, where appropriate, Provision 2.
6. Give district food service directors control over all foods sold on school campuses and direct all food service monies through the food service departments.
7. Make changes to the WIC food package to include more fresh fruits and vegetables, less high fat cheese and juice and appropriate state funds for the WIC Farmers' Market Program.
8. Make school facilities available after school and on weekends for recreational and fitness use.
9. Enforce current physical education (PE) requirements at all levels and improve the overall quality of PE programs.
10. Commission impact studies to determine the cost and effectiveness of these approaches in achieving behavior change.
Obesity is epidemic in the United States - one-third of all American adults are obese. Obesity is also the most prevalent nutritional disease among youth, with 27% of children and 21% of adolescents currently considered obese. Concern about obesity has grown, given studies that indicate a two-fold increase in youth obesity rates over the past two decades. Obese youth face increased risks for many serious health problems that are not expected to occur during childhood, including high blood cholesterol levels, abnormal glucose tolerance, and high blood pressure. More than 80% of obese adolescents remain obese as adults. Millions of American children live in jeopardy of poor health because they are overweight or obese and, at the same time, poorly nourished and physically inactive. Obesity starts early in life, yet it is not an individual behavioral problem. Its roots are tangled in a series of systemic choices that American society has made for generations, choices that result in poor diets and lack of physical activity. Several recent California studies have identified the ready access children have to high fat fast foods at school and in their community as a primary contributor to unhealthy diets. Effective prevention of obesity in childhood requires a comprehensive systemic approach.
Solutions:
Overall, a
comprehensive approach is required that engages communities, schools, families,
and other institutions in promoting and supporting healthy diets and physical
activity for all children. Pre-schools
and schools can act as a catalyst for community change and serve to model and
reinforce the healthy behaviors children need to adopt and practice throughout
their lives. With schools as the focus,
the Strategic Alliance to Prevent Childhood Obesity proposes increased state
and federal funding to: 1) improve the nutritional quality of foods served, 2)
increase access and participation in subsidized high-quality meal programs by
marketing to students, teachers, and parents, and 3) engage students in
selecting healthy food items sold by food service. Schools also must enforce
current physical activity requirements and expand access to recreational
facilities for regular and frequent use by the community. Specifically, we recommend the following:
School Age
Population:
· Institute an incentives awards program that would increase funds available to schools, if certain benchmarks were met toward the development of healthy school environments.
· Increase funding for all the school and community meal programs (including program startup and expansion grants) with a goal of working toward universal feeding.
· Increase participation of students, particularly students from low-income families, in all of the school meal programs. Participation in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) must be increased so that more students will be eating healthier meals. Students want healthy foods that are affordable and taste good.
· Increase the number of schools participating in all of the federally funded school meal programs.
· Improve facilities and equipment and time for school meal preparation and consumption.
· Eliminate competitive foods, especially at the elementary school level.
· Adopt nutritional standards for the sale of any a la carte or competitive foods sold on school grounds. Develop and institute school board policies that do not allow the sale of specific low-nutritive value foods (i.e. candy, soda) on school campuses.
· Eliminate of all soda sales on school campuses and contracts with schools and school districts.
· Give food service directors control over foods sold on school campuses and direct all food service monies directly to the food service department, not through the school business office.
· Create “Junk food free” zones outside of all schools.
· Enforce current physical activity (PE) requirements at the elementary, middle school, and high school level. Increase high school requirements from 2 years to 4 years.
· Build community involvement in creating time and space for physical activity.
· Promote school gardens as part of a comprehensive nutrition education program, along with an integrated curriculum and well-trained instructors.
Preschool population:
· Expand WIC to include children up to age six; and forge stronger alliances between WIC and the Child Care Food Program (serving family daycare homes, Head Start and child care centers) to that large-scale nutrition education, community-based efforts, and health message campaigns can better serve the preschool population.
·
Enhance the WIC food package to promote healthier food
choices, such as fruits and vegetables year round, and increase state funding
for WFMNP (WIC Farmers' Market Program).
· Establish state-funded incentive grants for family child care providers in return for their agreement to increase the nutrition benefits of their meals and snacks and strengthen their physical activity and education commitment.
Future Research:
We recommend that the State commission studies to determine the cost and effectiveness of implementing these proposed changes in the following ways:
1) A School Food Service Finance Survey that would explore and monitor the impact of instituting stricter standards or eliminating the sale of competitive foods on school grounds, improving the quality of current foods sold, and increasing student participation rates. An evaluation monitoring system needs to be put in place to assess the feasibility, cost, and impact of the recommended changes.
2)
A Study of Student
Participation in the existing government subsidized school meal programs and
approaches to increasing participation and revenue. Often cited as the main
barrier to change, more needs to be learned about how to increase and sustain
student participation in the existing school meal program, in order to decrease
dependence on the sale of competitive foods outside of the school cafeteria.
3)
An Evaluation that
measures the impact and effectiveness of each proposed strategy on achieving
behavior change. Establish an
evaluation monitoring system that would determine the effectiveness of various
strategies and the long term impact on student diet and physical activity
patterns.
We urge you to support these measures to improve the health and well-being of California’s children.
California Adolescent Nutrition and Fitness Program (CANFit)
California Center for Public Health Advocacy
California Food Policy Advocates
California Project LEAN
California WIC Association
Prevention Institute
Samuels & Associates