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National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion |
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Making It Happen! School Nutrition Success Stories is a booklet that describes innovative approaches to improving student nutrition in the United States. It features stories from 32 schools and school districts that improved the nutritional quality of foods and beverages offered or sold on school campuses outside of federal meal programs. These foods and beverages are often called “competitive foods” because they compete with federal meal programs.
Making It Happen! was published in 2005 by Team Nutrition, an initiative of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, and the Division of Adolescent and School Health in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It also was part of President Bush’s HealthierUS initiative and was supported by the U.S. Department of Education.
Making It Happen! is a resource to help people make positive changes in school nutrition environments and food and beverage options in schools. It provides an overview of issues related to the provision or sale of competitive foods and beverages in schools. Making It Happen! also provides examples of actions schools and school districts can take, information on how to make changes, and examples of who can be involved in these efforts.
The success stories are a sampling of actions schools and school districts across the country are taking to improve the nutritional quality of foods and beverages offered or sold in schools. They include information about the school or school district, the type of approach used, key results, a description of the changes made, factors that helped the changes succeed, future plans, and contact information.
Each story is unique, just as each school is unique. Together, these stories provide inspiration—and a wealth of practical ideas—for anyone who wants to make healthy nutrition environments happen for students and schools everywhere.
Making It Happen! describes the following six approaches that schools and school districts used to promote a healthier school nutrition environment:
All of the stories are successes! Any group that is helping to improve the health of children and taking steps that will help reduce the prevalence of overweight by changing school nutrition environments qualifies as a success story. Each Making It Happen story addresses changes made in a specific school setting and offers valuable information to the reader.
Making It Happen! is a valuable resource for schools and school districts looking for ways to improve the health and eating behaviors of young people.
Schools across the country already are using Team Nutrition’s Changing the Scene: Improving the School Nutrition Environment and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s School Health Index: A Self-Assessment and Planning Guide. A need was identified for success stories that could be used to show that students will select and eat more healthful foods and beverages if they are available. Making It Happen! meets this need. It is also timely for local education agencies that are developing and implementing wellness policies as required by law under the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004. Nine schools or school districts in this booklet had developed school nutrition policies.
Making It Happen! is a practical “how-to” guide that focuses on nutrition environments outside of school meals. It complements ongoing efforts to improve the quality of school meals, to enhance nutrition education in the classroom, and to implement a coordinated approach to school health. Making It Happen! contains support materials from numerous schools and school districts, including examples of actual policies, regulations, letters to parents, nutrition standards, and nutrition resources.
Thirty-two schools and school districts from across the country are featured. They represent just a small portion of the schools that are taking action to improve the nutritional quality of foods and beverages in schools.
The schools and school districts in Making It Happen! were identified through personal contacts, electronic mailing lists, and media coverage. They were chosen to be geographically representative, to reflect the diversity of U.S. schools and school districts, and to illustrate big and small changes that schools and school districts can make. The information included is self-reported and based on interviews with the key contacts for each story.
We would love to hear about the successes of other schools and school districts. Please share your school nutrition success story.
Making It Happen! is designed for anyone who wants to improve the nutrition environment in his or her school. This person could be a superintendent, principal, or teacher. It also could be a student, parent, school food service professional, school nurse, community leader, or local health professional.
Public schools with budget shortfalls often seek to use money from vending machines to fill the gaps. Making It Happen! shows that schools and school districts can make money selling healthful items if they make them available, market them well, and make the changes with a positive attitude. Of the 17 schools and school districts that reported sales data, 12 increased their revenue as a result of the changes, and four reported no change.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has many regulations on the foods and beverages that are part of school meals. However, the only federal rule for foods and beverages sold á la carte or in vending machines is that schools cannot sell “foods of minimal nutritional value” in food service areas during meal periods. Such foods can be sold during the entire school day, including during meal periods, anywhere else on campus, including right outside the cafeteria doors.
Foods of minimal nutritional value are defined as items that provide less than 5% of the U.S. recommended daily allowance per serving for eight essential nutrients. They include carbonated beverages, water ices, chewing gum, and certain candies made largely from sweeteners, such as hard candy and jelly beans.
This food category does not include potato chips, chocolate bars, or doughnuts, which can be sold in the cafeteria or elsewhere in the school at any time. States, school districts, and schools can impose additional nutrition standards. Many state and local governments, as well as some local school districts, have adopted additional and more restrictive regulations. Twenty-eight states had done so as of July 2006.
No. Making It Happen! simply reports what some schools are doing to improve the nutritional quality of foods and beverages on campus. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and U.S. Department of Education do not endorse any products, services, or organizations in this publication.
The following are links to federal agencies that provide programs, materials, and education resources about school nutrition and the health of young people:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is working with the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to implement a new requirement for school districts, passed as part of the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004. This section of the law requires all local educational agencies participating in a program authorized by the National School Lunch Act or the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 to establish a local wellness policy by the beginning of the 2006-2007 school year. These local wellness policies should address nutrition education, physical activity, and other school-based activities that can promote student wellness. Of the 32 stories in the Making it Happen! booklet, nine provide examples of how to develop and implement local wellness policies.
The Making it Happen! School Nutrition Success Stories booklet
is free to schools and people working with schools. It is being
distributed by Team Nutrition, an initiative of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Services. It also can be downloaded
from the
Team
Nutrition Web site and from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention Healthy Youth Web site.
Making It Happen! is a joint project of:
Team Nutrition of the Food and
Nutrition Service,
United States Department of Agriculture
(USDA);
CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health,
Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS);
and the
United States Department of
Education (ED).
Documents on this page are available in Portable Document Format (PDF). Learn more about viewing and printing these documents with Acrobat Reader.
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Page last reviewed: October 20, 2008
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