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…

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…

Purpose/Objectives: The U.S. Department of Agriculture provides funding to elementary schools for the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) to encourage healthy eating. The purpose of this study was to examine factors facilitating or challenging the program's successful implementation in one New Jersey school. Methods: Researchers conducted an…

Project objectives and descriptions of 6 county migrant health projects are summarized and evaluated. The project services provided the migrant worker and his family included hospital, dental health, eye examination, nutrition, school health, maternal and child health, sanitation, and social services. Clinical and outreach activities in the…

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…

Background information for the auditing of New Jersey School Districts is given. Included are chapters on the following: (1) a digest of the School Audit Law, Title 18A:23-1 to 18A:23-11; (2) directives to the Boards of Education; (3) school district bookkeeping; (4) scope of funds to be audited; (5) conducting the school audit; and (6) sample of…

"Paterson Kids Count" is a statistical profile of the well-being of Paterson children in critical areas, such as poverty, health and nutrition. This second edition also documents the success of a data-driven, collective local effort in three key areas that were targeted for sustained advocacy and attention: (1) low school breakfast…

Food insecurity--the condition of having inadequate food due to a lack of resources--affected roughly 1 in 10 Americans in 2019, and this number increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among college students nationwide, the prevalence of food insecurity is unknown; however, studies have shown that food insecurity is a problem for some college…

Many scholars have suggested over the past several decades have pointed to a persisting achievement gap between white and black students. A lack of parental support and advocacy, peer influences, student health issues, poor nutrition, and low socioeconomic status are among the factors contributing to this gap (Chubb & Loveless, 2004). This…

Purpose/Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of coordinated in-classroom education and taste-testing activities on fruit and vegetable acceptance in a state-wide sample of third through sixth grade children. Methods: Two taste-testing sessions were a part of six nutrition lessons that were implemented in nine elementary…

Newly developed assessments of nutrition and exercise knowledge, attitudes, and behavior were administered to 383 eighth-graders. Evidence for the validity of assessment scores was evaluated with five findings. First, parent- and self-reported behaviors were similar and congruent for healthy eating and exercising but not for sedentary behaviors or…

Background: The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) of 2010 supported implementation of school gardens for promoting fruit and vegetable consumption. We examined school garden prevalence over time by school-level factors during the period before and after the implementation of HHFKA. Methods: Using data from the New Jersey Child Health Study,…

Objective: The purpose of this article was to identify some of the implications, challenges and benefits of edible gardens cultivated at schools located in southern New Jersey, USA. Design and Setting: Over the course of three academic years (between 2014 and 2017), 73 schools received start up monies for school gardens from AtlantiCare Health…

Last spring, the Covid-19 pandemic upended routines for over 56 million students and challenged more than 3.7 million teachers in over 130,000 schools nationwide to continue educating kids in an online format. This transition to "virtual learning" was understandably trying for all educators, schools, and districts, but some managed to do…

Objectives: To outline the prevalence and disparities of breakfast consumption among school-aged urban minority youth, causal pathways through which skipping breakfast adversely affects academic achievement, and proven or promising approaches for schools to increase breakfast consumption. Methods: Literature review. Results: On any given day a…