A new study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has found that American schools are starting to make progress in the battle against junk food and promoting physical activity. However, the report concludes that considerable more progress is needed to improve the health and wellbeing of American students.

The CDC study is titled The School Health Policies and Programs Study (SHPPS) 2006, and is published as a collection of articles in the October 2007 issue of the Journal of School Health.

American schools have made significant improvements in policies and programs intended to promote student health and safety said the report. Particularly praiseworthy are improvements in policies around nutrition, physical activity and use of tobacco. But there is still a long way to go said the report.

Said to be the largest and most comprehensive study of American school health policies and programs, the SHPPS is conducted every 6 years. The last two times were in 2000 and 1994.

CDC Director Julie L Gerberding said that the goal of the SHPPS was to give education and health officials information to help them:

“Develop and improve programs that can have significant benefit for our school-aged children.”

The main findings of the SHPPS 2006 include the following improvements between 2000 and 2006:

  • States that ban schools from selling junk food in vending machines went up from 8 to 32 per cent.

  • The proportion of school districts that have done the same went up from 4 to 30 per cent.

  • Schools selling water, either in vending machines or stores in the schools went up from 30 to 46 per cent.

  • States that have made regularly scheduled recess a requirement in elementary schools went up from 4 to 12 per cent.

  • The proportion of school districts that have done the same went up from 46 to 57 per cent.

  • Schools that ban all tobacco in school, including off campus events, went up from 46 to 64 per cent.

  • Schools selling cookies and other baked goods high in fat went down from 38 per cent to 25 per cent.

  • Schools offering salads a la carte went up from 53 to 73 per cent.

  • Schools offering french fries (deep fried potatoes) a la carte went down from 40 to 19 per cent.

The report also highlighted areas for improvement. These include:

  • 77 per cent of high schools sell soda or fruit drinks that are not 100 per cent juice.

  • 61 per cent of high schools sell salty snacks that are not low in fat.

  • 4 per cent of elementary schools provide daily physical education or its equivalent for the entire school year for students in all grades.

    • .

  • The figure for middle schools is slightly better at 8 per cent but worse for high schools at 2 per cent.

  • Overall, 22 per cent of schools do not require students to take any physical education.

  • And 36 per cent of schools still have no policies that ban the use of tobacco at all times throughout the school.

Director of the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health, Dr Howell Wechsler said that:

“If we want to build on the improvements that schools have made over the past six years, we need to involve many people and programs.”

He called on families, schools, admininistrators and board members to work together to promote health and safety among America’s youth.

Director of the Montefiore Medical Center’s School Health Program in New York City, Dr David Appel, told the Washington Post that he found the report encouraging, but childhood obesity was still a “major concern”.

Appel expressed disappointment in some of the report’s key findings and said, for example, that it was “humbling” that only 46 per cent of schools were offering water to drink. He told the newspaper that a lot of the areas where the CDC found progress should be at 100 per cent.

Click here for the October 2007 issue of the Journal of School Health (Vol 77 Issue 8 Page 383-587).

Written by: Catharine Paddock