The federal government has issued a mandate, through the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004, that provides the opportunity to establish standards for diet and health in our nation’s public schools. The requirement calls for each school district to form a Wellness Committee and draft a district Wellness Policy that addresses the quality of meals served at school, the regularity of physical education, and instruction connected to diet and health. These school Wellness Policies will go into effect at the beginning of the school year in 2006.
The Center for Ecoliteracy, in collaboration with Slow Food USA and the Chez Panisse Foundation, has prepared this downloadable Model Wellness Policy Guide. The Guide provides language and instructions for drafting a Wellness Policy that places health at the center of the academic curriculum.
Model Wellness Policy Guide
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(183k pdf)
Compiled and produced by Janet Brown, program officer for food systems,
Center for Ecoliteracy
Acknowledgements
The partners in this endeavor also gratefully acknowledge support from the
Arkay Foundation, and input from the following experts who reviewed
this document, and through their expertise, improved it.
Eleanor
Bertino, publicist, Eleanor
Bertino Public Relations
Karen Brown, designer, Karen Brown Design
Ann Cooper, author and chef
Ann Evans, nutrition education consultant,
California Department of Education
Joan Dye Gussow, Mary Swartz Rose Professor Emeritus of Nutrition and Education,
Teachers College, Columbia University
Brian Halweil, senior researcher, Worldwatch
Institute
Marion Nestle, Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and
Public Health, New York University
Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy,
Center for Science in the Public Interest
The Guide is inspired by the work of the Child Nutrition Advisory Council of the Berkeley Unified School District. That working group, a forerunner of the wellness committee, drafted and supported to adoption the first school district wellness policy of its kind in the nation in August of 1999. Their inspirational language is an integrator throughout the Guide that ensures that the intention in adopting the policy, and the policy itself, remain connected.