Wellness Policy Updates

FM Staff

One month after the official deadline for when U.S. school districts were required to pass local wellness policies in order to comply with a requirement of the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004, the School Nutrition Association (SNA) conducted a survey to establish how well they were doing in meeting that goal.

According to the survey, a large majority (86.5%) of districts report that they have passed a local wellness policy. An additional 8.8% say a policy has not yet passed, but is in development.

Most (60.5%) of these wellness policies involve general or broad nutrition guidelines, with only one-third involving specific nutrition guidelines. SNA reports the responses were generally consistent across demographics like district size and geographic location.

Also of note, 38% of the districts report having a policy that removes carbonated beverages from vending machines.