Purpose: The Australian Dietary Guidelines support good health and disease prevention. Children with healthy eating habits established early in life have been shown to continue these habits into adulthood compared with those children who have poor eating habits in their younger years. The nutritional intake of many Australian children is not in…

This study examined the effectiveness, generalization, and maintenance of a multi-element intervention consisting of brief direct instruction social skill lessons, a prompting procedure, and a fading procedure to promote social engagement in an integrated lunchroom and playground setting for three elementary age students with developmental…

Drawing on a three-year multimethod study of civic engagement within "Dewey Elementary," this article identifies the contextual supports of civic efficacy. In particular, it works to map the role of the teacher in supporting the civic action and efficacy of six fifth-grade girls who requested changes to the school's existing lunch plan.…

Youth Advisory Councils (YACs) ensure that students are represented in school wellness discussions. YACs empower students to present ideas, insights, and input on nutrition and physical activity; work alongside peers to assess wellness needs; and develop recommendations for enhancing/expanding the school wellness environment. YACs provide a…

Purpose/Objective: School cafeterias have the potential to positively contribute to the prevention and treatment of childhood obesity. The purpose of this project was to assess adolescents' nutrition knowledge and dietary choices, and to measure the relationship between students' nutrition knowledge and the type of food items purchased in their…

The study reported here examined Extension professionals' involvement in farm-to-school program activities. Results of an online survey distributed to eight state Extension systems indicate that on average, Extension professionals are involved with one farm to school program activity, with most supporting school or community garden programs.…

Background: To enhance the impact of school nutrition programs on children's health, more information is needed on the associations between healthy and unhealthy food offerings during school lunch periods and children's eating behavior. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the contributions of food offerings and participation in school lunch…

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) of 2010 sets new nutrition standards for schools, requiring them to serve a greater variety and quantity of fruits and vegetables. Extension educators in New Jersey partnered with school nutrition professionals to implement a school wellness initiative that included taste-testing activities to support…

While school lunch has the potential to be a time for students to develop appropriate social skills, most cafeterias are rife with disruptive and aggressive behavior. Lunch monitors struggle to effectively manage the many students eating lunch and yet few evidence-based cafeteria interventions exist. The purpose of this study was to implement and…

A trio of researchers presents a case study from a practical, participatory action research project to demonstrate how one school district implemented a school-wide bullying prevention initiative for all elementary schools based on Bully Prevention in Positive Behavior Support (BP-PBS). The purpose of this manuscript is to discuss the process of…

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that it is possible to make major changes in a primary school with limited investment. I wish to present the methods used in this process which enabled me to examine the existing catering, to identify, investigate and research the problems, to explore the literature available and to synthesise my results…

Background: School-based interventions hold promise for child obesity prevention. Implemented as a part of the "Winning with Wellness" obesity prevention project, the "Go Slow Whoa" meal pattern (GSW) was designed to promote healthier foods in school cafeterias. This investigation determined perceived program effectiveness and…

Employing the multiple-baseline across-subjects design, the authors examined the implementation and potential effect of a virtual-reality-based social interaction program on the interaction and communication performance of children with high functioning autism. The data were collected via behavior observation and analysis, questionnaires, and…

Purpose/Objectives: The Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004 required all school districts participating in federally funded child nutrition programs to adopt and implement a school wellness policy by the beginning of the 2006-2007 school year. One drawback of this federal mandate was that it did not provide funding to assist with…

Objective: To assess the impact of a multicomponent nutrition education program on student knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to consumption of fruits and vegetables (FVs). Design: Quasi-experimental pretest/posttest research design; 3 study conditions (Intervention+, Intervention, Comparison). Setting: Six schools from the Los Angeles…