School food policy resources

The March edition of the online magazine Informed Eating includes a section on resources for school food policies:

Community Action to Change School Food Policy. The Massachusetts Public Health Association has put together a wonderful toolkit to help pass local policies to eliminate junk food and sodas from schools. It includes many top-notch resources, including sample policies, how to write a press release, arguments and responses (provided by CIFC), and much more. The toolkit also links local school policy efforts with Massachusetts’s statewide legislation re-filed this year to eliminate sweetened beverages and foods of minimal nutritional value from schools. Kudos to MPHA’s director of education, Roberta Friedman for her dedication and hard work on this project! To download the toolkit, visit: www.mphaweb.org/home_food_policy_kit.pdf.

Framing the School Soda Debates. The Berkeley Media Studies Group has evaluated how recent debates on banning sodas in schools were framed in news coverage of the battles in the Oakland and Los Angeles Unified School Districts. How did proponents and opponents make their case? What statistics, metaphors, and values did they use? The findings can help advocates better state their position and anticipate their opposition's arguments. To download the report, visit: http://www.bmsg.org/content/Issue15.pdf.

Countering Arguments for Sodas in Schools. To help support advocates who are fighting battles to get soda out of schools all over the country, CIFC has put together a list of common arguments along with suggested responses. You can access this document on the new section of our Resources page called, Taking on Industry: www.informedeating.org/resources.html.