Schools and educational leaders play critical roles in child nutrition. Recent legislation has focused attention on nutrient levels from meals consumed in schools. The purpose of this study was to compare school and packed lunches for nutritional profiles for preschoolers in New Jersey public school settings. This study also looked at nutrient…

Introduction: Education is a social determinant of health, and its intersection with incarceration is a powerful nexus for well-being of students. Whether policies specific to student well-being are associated with exclusionary discipline, a documented risk factor for incarceration, is unknown. This study has three aims: (1) to identify whether…

In this dissertation I use modern microeconomic methods to examine the impact of K-12 education policy interventions on student outcomes. In the first chapter I explore how increased funding for school policing and sentiment surrounding school policing can have downstream effects on student discipline, and how these effects vary by student and…

Despite the link between school-lunch participation and student health, only half of adolescents with the program in their schools participate on a given day. A multi-pronged school lunch promotion intervention was implemented in middle and high schools in an urban, low-income school district to improve school lunch participation and reduce food…

The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 was reauthorized to create school environments that provide nutrient-dense meals to students who are living in poverty. The free and reduced-price lunch program helps 19% of students who are living in poverty in America (Kids Count Data Center, 2017). These students arrive at school hungry and often times…

This study examined the fruit and vegetable intake of a large sample of Alabama school children in elementary schools receiving fifty percent or more free or reduced priced lunch who qualify for the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program. The results of this study provide insight as to whether access to a variety of fresh produce, in additional to…

Over 50 million children attend public elementary and secondary schools in the United States each day. Children spend a substantial portion of their waking hours in school and consume one-third to one-half of their daily calories there, making schools a promising site to influence dietary quality and potentially the risk of childhood obesity.…

This study examined differences in grade school students' BMI percentiles before and after the "Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act" of 2012 and factors that may have influenced those differences. Using publically available data from the Pennsylvania Departments of Health and Education, a comparative analysis of BMI percentiles, ethnicity,…

School wellness policy is a requirement for all public schools within the United States participating in the National School Lunch Program, under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. The legislation provides a set of content requirements for local school districts to use in creating their policy. The legislation recognizes the unique needs…

According to a 2007 U.S. Census report, 43% of children in America younger than six are classified as low income (U.S. Census Bureau, 2007). The USDA (2008a, 2009a) indicated 17.1% of school-aged children are classified as overweight; an additional 15% are at risk of becoming overweight; and approximately 17.2 million children are living in…

The sale of second servings and/or a la carte purchases made by elementary students participating in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) was investigated in this mixed methods case study. The percentage of elementary students in one school district who purchase second servings and/or a la carte items, in addition to the regularly purchased…

The purpose of this study is to make transparent the current National School Lunch Program (NSLP). The first mission of this project is to clarify how the NSLP functions on a day-to-day basis in Columbus, Ohio. Columbus is used as a sample city, yet the aim of this research is to be transferable to other locations. The second objective is to…

This study examines the overall results of the Physical Fitness Test (PFT) and the six fitness areas of the PFT, academic achievement, demographics and self perceptions and the potential impact on students' performance on the PFT. While academic expectations are increasing, the adolescent obesity rate is also increasing, producing a decline in the…

My dissertation is motivated by a puzzle of international social policy and norm emergence and diffusion. Today, children in one hundred and forty-one countries receive free or subsidized school lunches. Yet less than a century ago, no state had a national child nutrition policy. Feeding children was clearly not considered a state responsibility a…

This study determined attitudes of kindergarten through fifth grade teachers about school nutrition environments, their perceived influence on school nutrition environments, and self-reported classroom behaviors. Specific objectives were to: (a) identify perceived factors that influence the school nutrition environment, according to teachers…