District Wellness Policy Focuses School Health Efforts

Audrey Satterblom

It's time to ask: are we so concerned about testing that the health of our children is being overlooked?

Maybe having children go to physical education class to play active games could better prepare them for a test than spending more instruction time on test content. Maybe we should require all K–12 students to be out of their seats every 20 minutes. Even adults can't sit through an hour-long meeting without getting fidgety, so why do we expect our students to do the same thing hour after hour, day after day?

Academic success is important, but if children are not healthy, they can't perform to the best of their abilities. Perhaps it's time that all schools look at the wellness of their students as closely as they monitor results on their standardized tests. A school wellness policy can help with this.

First, check to see if your school district already has a wellness policy. U. S. law requires that schools that receive funding for free and reduced-price lunches must have wellness policies in place. A typical policy includes information about how a district will improve student wellness in the following areas:

1. Nutrition standards in the school: This not only includes cafeteria meals but also may affect food sold during fund-raisers or brought in for school parties.
   
2. Nutrition education: This is typically provided through health class.
   
3. Physical activity during school: This usually happens during physical education class but also includes other times when students can leave their seats to learn and move.
   
4. Other school-based activities to address student wellness: These might include after-school fitness clubs, nutrition clubs, dance teams, intramurals, YMCA programs, hip-hop clubs, cheerleading, marching band, and Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) programs.
   

A wellness policy can be a powerful resource for schools to use to target health issues affecting students. It is well documented that childhood obesity is an epidemic with many factors behind it, including a lack of physical activity and poor food choices. Children have too much screen time in front of televisions, computers, and video games. And the fast pace of our lives often means grabbing fast food instead of having a well-balanced meal. Better nutrition standards at school combined with nutrition education can assist students in making thoughtful food choices for stronger and healthier lives.

A district can use a wellness policy as a tool to address health issues that can have a huge impact on learning. In 2002, California reported that its 5th grade students who met all six physical fitness standards (aerobic activity, body composition, upper body strength, etc.) scored 20 and 25 points higher on SAT-9 reading and math tests, respectively, than their classmates who met only three of the fitness standards. Taking a lesson from this state and others, we should endorse, not ignore, the concepts addressed in a wellness policy.

In 2006, Indianapolis (Ind.) Public Schools approved its wellness policy, which included some of the following steps, as part of a whole child education effort:

• Producing a video to explain the wellness policy to the district's 3,500 teachers and administrators.
  
• Creating a wellness policy rubric so that principals can rate aspects of school wellness including the physical education curriculum, recess, nutrition education, and staff wellness.
  
• Promoting the development of whole child concepts (i.e., Are students healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged?) in schools through its Coordinated School Health Program.
  
• Requiring twice-yearly fitness assessments for students in grades 4–12.
  
• Introducing a new physical education curriculum that added moderate to vigorous physical activity through such "lifetime sports" as golf, badminton, Ultimate Frisbee, tennis, backyard volleyball, core muscle training, aerobics, kickboxing, and dance.
  
• Offering the Alliance for a Healthy Generation program, which allows each school to form a wellness team to develop a plan to promote health norms, to 30 schools.
  

The policy, reviewed annually, can help the district set its health priorities. For example, in Indianapolis, we've recently decided we'll need to make decisions about the foods that are sold through the high schools to raise funds for athletic programs. We also need to work on improving how nutrition education is carried out in our elementary schools.

It's important that all schools locate their wellness policy, blow the dust off of it, and begin implementing it. A wellness policy that's actually in play can help make schools places for students to learn lifelong healthy habits.

Audrey Satterblom is the wellness supervisor for the Indianapolis (Ind.) Public Schools.