What makes a good wellness policy a good one?
There are two components to a good wellness policy – Scope, and Specificity/Strength. The Scope of a policy is an index of what areas are included by the policy. For example, does it cover guidelines for all of the important areas (nutrition education, physical education, physical activity outside of PE, communication and promotion, evaluation, food standards for foods sold as part of the National School Lunch Program, food standards for foods sold or served outside of the NSLP). The Specificity of the policy is an index of how clear and concrete the guidelines are – in other words, does is say something vague like, “Our school district will only sell or serve healthy snacks to students” without defining “healthy” or does it say, “Our school district will only sell or serve snacks to students that meet the 2007 Institute of Medicine a la carte nutrition standards for elementary and middle schools.
