Make the Investment in School Wellness Initiatives

Nora Howley

School leaders, educators, parents, and other education stakeholders are aware of the rising rates of childhood overweight and obesity, and as a result are taking action around the country to help curb this epidemic.

The federal wellness policy mandate, which went into effect just over a year ago, provides schools with the unprecedented opportunity to make school wellness a higher priority. The time is now for school leaders and all other concerned individuals to energize their collective efforts to shape students' lifelong habits of good nutrition and physical activity.

Action for Healthy Kids is a national nonprofit organization that works to improve school wellness practices by helping students make better food choices and providing opportunities throughout the school day to move more and more often.

Since its inception, Action for Healthy Kids has promoted the most important reason school leaders should invest more time and resources in bringing healthy changes about in schools: healthy kids learn better. Well-nourished and active students are better prepared to achieve their academic best.

Action for Healthy Kids' landmark report, The Learning Connection: The Value of Improving Nutrition and Physical Activity in Our Schools, details the crucial link between student health and academic achievement. Visit www.actionforhealthykids.org to download the report.

Strategies for Success

Action for Healthy Kids teams across the country have developed and implemented some simple, cost-effective initiatives that have brought about incremental, noticeable, and commendable improvements. These teams are made up of volunteer parents, teachers, nurses, school administrators, board members, foodservice staff, community members, and representatives from state and local education and health agencies. Here are just a few examples of successful initiatives that can be replicated in your school or school district.

The Michigan Action for Healthy Kids Team created a Healthy School Toolkit—a bundle of school wellness handouts, resources, and tools to help schools take local wellness policies off the shelf and into action. The toolkit includes pragmatic guidelines for foods and beverages to be served on campus, information about community/public relations, strategies for organizing and coordinating school health "team" meetings, and ways educators can get away from using food as a reward for performance and achievement.

The type of toolkit Michigan Action for Healthy Kids developed can be created on a smaller scale through the collaboration of foodservice personnel, health educators, physical education teachers, school nurses, classroom teachers, parents, and school leaders.

Bring together a collaboration of these diverse individuals, or build this project into the purview of an already existing group (e.g., a school wellness committee) to make and distribute local school wellness toolkits. Visit the Resources to Improve Schools section of the Action for Healthy Kids Web site for the materials to include.

Another great example is the school breakfast project that the Ohio Action for Healthy Kids Team implemented to boost the school breakfast programs throughout the state. The team began by educating school officials about the different breakfast options available, including Grab & Go, providing quick, hand-held snacks to students on their way to class, or Breakfast in the Classroom, allowing students to eat their breakfast as part of their first period class. Once volunteers earned the buy-in from school leaders, the program took off and the project has more than doubled the number of Ohio students who eat breakfast each day.

The Ohio Action for Healthy Kids initiative was the product of a strong partnership with the Ohio Department of Education and grant funding from a corporate foundation. Key to this type of larger initiative is maximizing the untapped resources throughout the school and the surrounding community. With assistance from volunteers and strong collaborations, larger-scale initiatives can be manageable, affordable, and effective.

To learn more about proven-effective wellness initiatives, view and download the Action for Healthy Kids' report, Ideas, Commitment, Action, Results: Model Projects Advancing the Cause of School Wellness on the Action for Healthy Kids Web site.

Resources and Support

School board members, educators, and administrators turn to Action for Healthy Kids resources, programs, and tools for guidance and solutions to the widespread challenges that schools face in implementing wellness practices. Here are a few resources to improve wellness practices and implement strong, meaningful wellness policies.

• Game On! The Ultimate Wellness Challenge. This is a year-long program that challenges America's youth, their families, and schools to incorporate healthy food choices and physical activity into their daily lives. The program consists of a series of theme-based challenges spaced throughout the school year to engage and recognize students and the adults who support them for their efforts to make better food choices and move more.
• Online Web Forum—The Role of School Wellness In Creating High-Performing Schools. Action for Healthy Kids convened nationally known school leaders who were ahead of the curve in making school wellness a high priority to discuss the benefits, challenges, and solutions for promoting improved nutrition and physical activity within their schools. Their discussion is broadcast as an online Webcast forum. Featuring ideas, insights, and real-life experiences of school administrators, the Web forum provides a unique venue for knowledge-sharing that fulfills school leaders' need for guidance on the topic of school wellness.
• Action for Healthy Kids Wellness Policy Tool. Developed with input from the nation's leading organizations in children's health and education, Action for Healthy Kids' Wellness Policy Tool is an online guide to wellness policy development and implementation. The tool guides school administrators, educators, school nurses, foodservice staff, health professionals, and parents through the process of creating and implementing a local wellness policy. It provides resources, guidelines, and practical advice for each stage of the process, from drafting a new policy or revising an existing policy to building awareness and support to implementing the policy to evaluating the policy's impact.

All of these resources, programs, and tools can be found on the Action for Healthy Kids Web site at www.ActionForHealthyKids.org.

Making the Investment

Many challenges and obstacles lie in the path of school wellness initiatives, but providing opportunities to promote sound nutrition and physical activity are critical to successfully support an environment to nurture, learn, and grow. With creativity, persistence, and collaboration, schools must make the investment in school wellness initiatives. Wellness practices will directly benefit student health and academic achievement.

School leaders can and must heighten their role in the school wellness cause to bring meaningful change to students' health and achievement. Action for Healthy Kids is a great resource for school leaders and for those working with school leaders in collaborative efforts to improve school wellness practices and policies.