Changing school policies to prevent childhood obesity: Case studies of vanguard schools in California

California is leading the nation's efforts to reduce school-based promotion and distribution of sweetened beverages and unregulated competitive foods. In 2003, California's State Legislature passed landmark legislation to eliminate the sale of sweetened beverages from all of California's elementary and middle schools, with new standards to go into effect in July 2004. Several school districts in California have already passed district-wide policies banning sweetened beverages and unregulated competitive foods from all school campuses. Understanding the processes of passing and implementing these vanguard reforms will help to guide the development of tools, strategies, and practices for the evaluation of similar school nutrition policy changes across the nation. This contract provides support to supplement the contractor's ongoing National Institutes of Health-funded research to evaluate school soda bans in California by supporting four in-depth case studies to help assess the positive, and potential negative, impacts of these vanguard reforms, which will help define implementation facilitators and barriers and future assessment strategies. The project will be considered successful if the case studies clarify the process of passing, implementing, and evaluating promising school policy changes and are widely disseminated to decision makers across the country.

Grant Details

Amount Awarded $42,247.00

Awarded on: 2/26/2004

Time frame: 3/1/2004 - 2/28/2005

Grant Number: 50462