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Healthier schools |
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As public resolve to improve the food environment in schools grows, the Rudd Center is offering its expertise to ensure that the actions taken are truly effective in preventing obesity. Supported by a Robert Wood Johnson grant, Marlene Schwartz is evaluating the federally-mandated school wellness policies in every community in Connecticut. This complements her work as a speaker and advisor in many schools around the state. Communities around the country are issuing body mass index report cards to students to alert parents to weight problems. Again Schwartz took the lead, this time by reframing public debate on the practice and call for schools to offer more useful and comprehensive health information. Coverage of her work in a Connecticut newspaper calling for healthier schools joins a large body of press in which Rudd faculty drew attention to this issue. Rudd research continues to shed new light on children’s eating decisions and strategies to help them make better choices. Meghan O’Connell’s “taste tests” with preschoolers are providing information on their vegetable preferences. Marlene Schwartz found that placing fruit on a child’s lunch tray, rather than leaving it up to the student to take the fruit, means significantly more fruit gets eaten. Rebecca Puhl conducted an online study with Seventeen magazine readers in which she learned about their food choices as well as their weight bias attitudes. Christopher Wharton offered the same readership on-line diet and nutritional information. At the Yale School of Medicine’s Bring Your Child to Work Day, Puhl delivered a keynote address on how the media influences food choices, a talk cited by many of the audience members, both children and adults, as the highlight of the day. » Next: Shaping the public conversation; building coalitions and capacity |
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©2007 Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, Yale University. |
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