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。我们目前没有什么政策工具可以有效地在人口层面减少肥胖。然而，学校是影响这种流行病的主要场所。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，可以说是政策制定者改善美国青少年饮食的最重要杠杆之一。尽管联邦政府为这些项目提供资金援助和严格的饮食指导，但学校和学区在价格、菜单、质量、种类、时间、背景、交付方式、支付方式和可用替代方案等方面所采取的政策，对这些项目的成功起到了至关重要的作用。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。纽约市的公立学校为研究学校食品政策对项目参与、肥胖和学业成绩的影响提供了一个独特的实验室。纽约市拥有110万名学生和1600多所学校，各学校的食品政策和项目差异很大，社区环境和背景也相当多样化，学生群体也非常多样化。长期以来，纽约市在打击青少年肥胖方面一直处于领先地位。例如，2005年，该市学校开始为20多万名学生收集有关身高、体重、身体质量指数（BMI）和健康相关健身指标的年度FITNESSGRAM数据。2008年，该项目扩展到超过75万名学生。在这个项目中，我们将把在纽约市收集的FITNESSGRAM数据与个别学生和学校的特点联系起来，以便更好地了解学校通过其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)学业成绩的作用。第一个结果是通过FITNESSGRAM提供给每个学生，而膳食计划的参与情况是根据收入群体和学校报告的。每个学生的学业成绩——与FITNESSGRAM相关联——我们可以为1-12年级的学生提供。有关学区政策、学校实践和社区背景的数据将通过全市范围内的学校调查、对学区工作人员的访谈和几个学校案例研究来收集。该项目将通过对BMI的直接观察，为广泛的学校食品政策对儿童肥胖的影响提供大量数据。当其他学区、州和联邦政策制定者努力寻找影响儿童肥胖的政策方法时，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.