The Impact of School Food Policy on Childhood Obesity

描述（由申请人提供）：儿童肥胖是美国最紧迫的公共卫生问题之一。我们目前几乎没有政策工具来有效地减少人口层面的肥胖。然而，学校是影响这一流行病的主要场所。学校食品计划，包括学校午餐和早餐计划，每天为3000多万儿童提供服务，使其成为政策制定者改善美国青年饮食的最重要杠杆之一。虽然联邦政府为这些项目提供资金援助和严格的饮食指南，但学校和学区在价格、菜单、质量、品种、时间、背景、交付方式、支付方式和可用替代品等方面采取的政策严重影响了这些项目的成功。这些因素共同影响学生参与学校膳食计划，健康食品的消费，并最终影响儿童肥胖。纽约市公立学校提供了一个独特的实验室，用于研究学校食品政策对项目参与、肥胖和学业成绩的影响。纽约市拥有110万名学生和1,600多所学校，学校之间的食品政策和计划存在很大差异，社区环境和环境具有相当大的多样性，学生群体非常多样化。长期以来，纽约市在打击青少年肥胖方面也一直处于最前沿。例如，2005年，城市学校开始收集超过20万名学生的身高、体重、体重指数（BMI）和健康相关健康指标的年度FITNESSGRAM数据。2008年，该计划扩大到超过75万名学生。在这个项目中，我们将在纽约市收集的FITNESSGRAM数据链接到个别学生和学校的特点，以更好地了解学校通过他们的食品政策对学生健康的影响。具体而言，我们试图使用计量经济学方法来调查学校和地区食品政策对（a）BMI，（B）膳食计划参与和（c）学术成果的作用。第一个结果是提供给我们的个别学生通过FITNESSGRAM，而膳食计划的参与是由收入群体和学校报告。 个别学生的学术成果-FITNESSGRAM-我们可以为1-12年级的学生提供服务。有关地区政策，学校实践和邻里环境的数据将通过全市范围内的学校调查，与地区人员的访谈和几个学校的案例研究来收集。 该项目将通过直接观察体重指数，提供大量关于各种学校食品政策对儿童肥胖影响的数据。当其他学区、州和联邦政策制定者努力制定政策方法来影响儿童肥胖时，这些结果将表明哪些政策是成功的，值得推行。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Obesity among children is one of the most pressing public health problems in the United States. We currently have few policy tools to effectively reduce obesity at the population level. However, schools are a prime place to influence this epidemic. The School Food program, including both the school lunch and breakfast programs, serves more than 30 million children every day, making it arguably one of the most important levers available to policymakers for improving the diet of America9s youth. Although the federal government provides funding assistance and strict dietary guidelines to these programs, their success is shaped critically by policies adopted by schools and school districts regarding price, menu, quality, variety, timing, context, method of delivery, means of payment, and available alternatives. Together these affect student participation in school meal programs, consumption of healthy foods, and, ultimately, childhood obesity. The New York City (NYC) public schools offer a unique laboratory for studying the effects of school food policies on program participation, obesity, and academic achievement. With its 1.1 million students and more than 1,600 schools, NYC exhibits wide variation in food policies and programs across schools, considerable diversity in neighborhood settings and contexts, and a remarkably diverse student body. NYC has also long been at the cutting edge in its efforts to combat youth obesity. For example, in 2005, the city schools began collecting annual FITNESSGRAM data on height, weight, body mass index (BMI), and indicators of health-related fitness for more than 200,000 students. In 2008, the program expanded to well over 750,000 students. In this project, we will link FITNESSGRAM data collected in NYC to individual student and school characteristics to better understand the influence schools have on student health through their food policies. Specifically, we seek to use econometric methods to investigate the role school and district food policies have on (a) BMI, (b) meal program participation, and (c) academic outcomes. The first outcome is available to us for individual students through the FITNESSGRAM, while meal program participation is reported by income group and school. Academic outcomes for individual students--linkable to the FITNESSGRAM--are available to us for the universe of students grades 1-12. Data on district policies, school practices, and neighborhood context will be collected via a city-wide survey of schools, interviews with district personnel, and several school case studies. This project will provide considerable data on the impact of a wide range of school food policies on childhood obesity, through direct observation of BMI. As other school districts and state and federal policymakers struggle with policy approaches to influence childhood obesity, these results will indicate which policies are successful and worth pursuing.