Purpose: Exposures to favorable environments in childhood, including those in schools, are associated with healthy habits among children. In this study, we developed a series of indices aimed at measuring students' exposure to different dimensions of the school food and physical activity (PA) environment. We implemented these indices to investigate how different aspects of the school food and PA environment changed over time and examined their correspondence with known changes in relevant policies and programs.

Methods: All public schools (n= 141) in four school districts in New Jersey provided detailed food and PA environment data for each school year from 2010-2011 to 2015-2016. Seven food environment indices, three PA environment indices, and two additional indices that capture health-promoting initiatives at the school level and at the state or federal level were developed.

Results: Although the school PA environment largely remained unchanged, several dimensions of the school food environment changed between 2010-2011 and 2015-2016. Overall, the number of healthy items increased over time in vending machines (p < .001), a la carte (p < .05), or through reimbursable school lunches (p < .001); decreases in number of unhealthy items were only detected in school lunches (p < .05). For most food indices, both the number of items offered and the trend over time varied across school levels.

Conclusions: Schools are a key venue for implementing policy and environment interventions aimed to promote healthy behaviors. Indices developed from easy-to-use survey questions captured multiple dimensions of the school food and PA environments and were sensitive to policy changes over time.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6827867PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2019.01.006DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

school food
20
food environment
16
school
13
dimensions school
12
environment
9
food physical
8
physical activity
8
activity environment
8
school districts
8
districts jersey
8

Similar Publications

The agricultural sector of any country plays a pivotal role in its economy. Irrigation and the provision of appropriate nutrient levels in soil are essential for optimizing plant growth and enhancing crop productivity. To support the increasing need for food due to the growing population worldwide, synthetic fertilizers have been widely used in the agricultural sector.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Building insights into the structure-performance relationship of catalysts has been emphasized recently. However, it remains a challenge due to catalysts' various and complex structures, especially the easily overlooked influence of the support material. Here, we reveal the crucial influences of boron introduction on synthesizing 3D carbon nanotube monoliths with embedded multistate Co metals, i.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Association between dietary factors and the risk of developing inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has been studied extensively. However, identification of deleterious dietary patterns merits further study.

Aim: To investigate the risk of developing Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) according to the inflammatory score of the diet (ISD) in the multinational European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The occurrence of off-flavor in osmanthus absolutes has emerged as a significant concern that could hinder its broad market acceptance and associated economic development. In this study, key off-flavor molecules in industrial osmanthus absolute were identified through sensomics and chemometric approaches. A group of 10 off-flavor (OF) samples, eliciting smoky/phenolic, sweaty/sour, and spicy odors, were compared with 10 pleasant aroma (PA) samples through various analyses, including overall aroma assessment, comprehensive chemical profiling, aroma extract dilution analysis (AEDA), and orthogonal partial least-squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This study describes a new species of Polyxenida from China, , along with a species newly recorded from China: (Miyosi, 1947), and provides additional descriptions of Ishii & Liang, 1990 and Ishii & Liang, 1990. The study conducted mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) sequencing for all four species and constructed a phylogenetic tree based on the molecular data. The comprehensive morphological descriptions and molecular analyses confirm the addition of one new species and one newly recorded species for the Polyxenida fauna of China, elevating the total number of known Polyxenida species in the country from 10 to 12.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!