Nutrition Education and Promotion

The school district aims to teach, encourage and support healthy eating by students. Schools should provide nutrition education and engage in nutrition promotion that:

• is offered as part of a sequential, comprehensive, standards-based program designed to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to promote and protect their health;
• is part of not only health education classes, but also integrated in subjects such as math, science, language arts, social sciences and elective subjects;
• includes enjoyable, developmentally-appropriate, culturally-relevant, participatory activities, such as contests, promotions, taste testing and farm visits
• promotes fruits, vegetables, whole grain products, low-fat and fat-free dairy products, healthy food preparation methods, and health-enhancing nutrition practices;
• emphasizes caloric balance between food intake and energy expenditure (physical activity/exercise);
• links with school meal programs, other school foods and nutrition-related community services; and
• includes training for teachers and other staff.

Integrating Physical Activity into the Classroom Setting

For students to receive the nationally recommended amount of daily physical activity and for students to fully embrace regular physical activity as a personal behavior, students need opportunities for physical activity beyond physical education class. Toward that end:

• Classroom health education will complement physical education by reinforcing the knowledge and self-management skills needed to maintain a physically-active lifestyle and to reduce time spent on sedentary activities, such as watching television;
• Opportunities for physical activity will be incorporated into other subject lessons; and
• Classroom teachers should provide short physical activity breaks between lessons or classes, as appropriate.

Communications with Parents

The district and schools will support parents' efforts to provide a healthy diet and daily physical activity for their children. The district or school may offer healthy eating seminars for parents, send home nutrition information, post nutrition tips on school Web sites and provide nutrient analyses of school menus. Schools should encourage parents to pack healthy lunches and snacks and to refrain from including beverages and foods that do not meet the above nutrition standards for individual foods and beverages. The district or school may provide parents a list of foods that meet the district's snack standards and ideas for healthy celebrations and parties, rewards and fund-raising activities. In addition, the district or school may provide opportunities for parents to share their healthy food practices with others in the school community.

The district and school may provide information about physical education and other school-based physical activity opportunities before, during and after the school day; and support parents' efforts to provide their children with opportunities to be physically active outside of school. Such supports may include sharing information about physical activity and physical education through a Web site, newsletter or other take-home materials, special events or physical education homework.

Food Marketing in Schools

School-based marketing should be consistent with nutrition education and health promotion. As such, schools will be encouraged to limit food and beverage marketing to the promotion of foods and beverages that meet the nutrition standards for meals or for foods and beverages sold individually (above). The promotion of healthy foods, including fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy products is encouraged. Marketing activities that promote healthful behaviors include vending machine covers promoting water, pricing structures that promote healthy options in a la carte lines or vending machines, sales of fruit for fund-raisers and coupons for discount gym memberships.

Staff Wellness

The district highly values the health and well-being of every staff member and will encourage activities and policies that support personal efforts by staff to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Each district or school should establish and maintain a staff wellness committee. The committee should develop, promote and oversee a multifaceted plan to promote staff health and wellness. The plan should be based on input solicited from school staff and should outline ways to encourage healthy eating, physical activity and other elements of a healthy lifestyle. The staff wellness committee should share its plan with the school site-based decision-making council annually.