Local Wellness Policy Development Committee Composition and Policy Characteristics Influence on Nutrition Education Comprehensiveness and Rigor of Pennsylvania Local Education Agencies' Wellness Policies

Open Access
- Author:
- Baylis, Megan Smith
- Graduate Program:
- Nutrition
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- July 12, 2010
- Committee Members:
- Claudia Kay Probart, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Claudia Kay Probart, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor - Keywords:
- Wellness Policy
Nutrition Education
Wellness Policy Development Committee
Childhood Obesity
Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 200 - Abstract:
- ABSTRACT Background Childhood obesity and complicating co-morbid health problems are increasing worldwide. In the United States over the past 30 years, childhood obesity rates have increased almost three-fold. School environments are seen as an important location to model healthy lifestyle practices and teach our nation’s youth nutrition education. In an effort to help schools improve children’s nutrition and physical activity habits, The Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-265) was established. This act requires all local education agencies (LEAs) that sponsor school meals programs to develop local wellness policies (LWPs) to address the issue of childhood obesity. Among the mandated requirements of the LWP were nutrition education, physical activity goals, nutritional guidelines to address foods offered on the school campus, and the inclusion of six mandatory committee members in the development process: school board member, school administrator, food service representative, student, parent, and public member. Objective Nutrition education is effective as a prevention and intervention method to address childhood obesity. The objective of this study was two-fold. The first objective was to observe which PSBA template nutrition education goals were included in the LEA’s LWPs and the strength of these goals. The second objective was to examine what predicts the strength (rigor) and number (comprehensiveness) of the nutrition education (NE) goal component in each LEA’s LWP. We described the relationship of the demographic (includes LEA type, locale, and socioeconomic status) characteristics of LEAs, resources and assistance received by LEAs, the composition of the mandatory development committees, and the LWP overall policy comprehensiveness and rigor (strength) scores, excluding the NE goals, as predictors of number (comprehensiveness) and strength (rigor) of nutrition education (NE) goals. Methods LWPs were abstracted and analyzed from LEAs in Pennsylvania. Only LEAs that followed a traditional school day format were included in the analysis (n=721; including 539 public LEAs and 182 private LEAs). An example template policy developed by Pennsylvania School Board Association (PSBA) and The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) was used as the standard policy to which all Pennsylvania LEA’s LWP were compared. A 15-item Local Wellness Policy Checklist (LWPC), developed by PDE and containing the LEAs’ responses to questions related to the LEA and the LWP development process, was also utilized. Information about LEA sponsor type, committee member composition, and assistance resources were abstracted from the checklist for this study. Variables used for multiple linear regression models in this study were abstracted from the LWPs and LWPCs of 721 LEAs. SPSS17.0 statistical software package was used for all data analysis. Results A descriptive analysis of the 721 Pennsylvania LEAs show that 539 (74.8%) were public LEAs and 182 (25.2% were private LEAs. Public LEAs were mainly school districts (92.6%), and private LEAs were predominately Catholic religious LEAs (76.4%). Public LEAs serve a mixture of elementary, middle, and high school students in numerous buildings, whereas private LEAs are mostly elementary schools located in one building only. In a descriptive analysis of the PSBA template nutrition education goals, we found that for both public and private LEAs the most commonly included NE goals were general and broad in policy language. The least commonly chosen NE goals were specific goals; these goals were also most likely to be weakened in policy language when compared to the PSBA template goals. Public and private LEAs chose similar PSBA NE goals to weaken in their policies, such as integrating nutrition education throughout the curriculum and disseminating nutrition education consistently throughout the school, family, community, and media. Private LEAs were more likely than public LEAs to weaken NE goals. We also found significant differences between public and private LEA’s development committee composition and their association with NE comprehensiveness and rigor in our analysis. An association between development committee members’ on the inclusion of NE goals and their strength (weaker or stronger than PSBA template goals) was only observed in private LEAs. In terms of the number (comprehensiveness) of NE goals included, student, school administrator, and public member presence on the LWP development committee were associated with fewer NE goals; whereas, school board member and parent involvement were associated with more NE goals. The only LWP committee member with an observed association with the NE rigor score was the school board member, whose involvement was associated with to less rigorous NE goals. School foodservice representative was not found to be associated with the number or strength of NE goals in our analysis. We also found that overall policy factors were associated with NE comprehensiveness and rigor: LEAs with more comprehensive and rigorous overall policies were associated with more comprehensive and rigorous NE goals regardless of their LEA type (public or private), locale, socioeconomic status, or assessment tools utilized. This may be due to a halo effect. In terms of demographic factors, locale and socioeconomic status factors were not associated with NE comprehensiveness or rigor scores for either public or private LEAs. However, the use of outside resources (such as government grants or assessment programs) was associated with NE comprehensiveness and rigor. We observed that public LEAs that received STEPS assistance was associated with fewer yet more rigorous NE goals. Finally, our research found that public LEAs that assessed the school environment prior to LWP development were associated with more comprehensive NE goal components, while using PANA assessment tool was associated with more rigorous NE goals. Discussion A federal mandate coupled with rigorous state policy review and the PSBA template policy was a successful strategy in Pennsylvania to help LEAs meet LWP wellness committee requirements and develop comprehensive and rigorous overall policy and nutrition education goals. Variables predictive of NE scores for private LEA’s LWPs were the development committee members involved in the LWP development, whereas public LEA’s LWPs were more associated with the sources of external assistance. Differences in how LEA types (public or private) approached the development of their local wellness policies and the strength of the NE goals included suggests that different approaches need to be made when informing public versus private LEAs of federal mandates and available resources of trainings, assessment tools, grants, and educational materials.