title: School Wellness Programs: Magnitude and Distribution in New York City Public Schools.
abstract: Public schools provide students with opportunities to participate in many discretionary, unmandated wellness programs. Little is known about the number of these programs, their distribution across schools, and the kinds of students served. We provide evidence on these questions for New York City (NYC) public schools.
  
  
  
  Data on wellness programs were collected from program websites, NYC's Office of School Food and Wellness, and direct contact with program sponsors for 2013. Programs were grouped into categories, nutrition, fitness, and comprehensive, and were combined with data on school characteristics available from NYC's Department of Education. Numbers of programs and provision of programs were analyzed for relationships with demographic and school structural characteristics, using descriptive statistics and multiple regression.
  
  
  
  Discretionary wellness programs are numerous, at 18 programs. Little evidence supports inequity according to student race/ethnicity, income, or nativity, but high schools, new schools, co-located schools, small schools, and schools with larger proportions of inexperienced teachers are less likely to provide wellness programs.
  
  
  
  Opportunities exist to further the reach of wellness programs in public schools by modifying them for high school adoption and building capacity in schools less likely to have the administrative support to house them.
authors.affiliation: New York University Wagner and Steinhardt Schools, New York, NY.|NYU Institute for Education and Social Policy, 246 Greene Street, New York, NY 10003.
authors.forename: Leanna
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Stiefel
authors.affiliation: NYU Wagner and School of Medicine, New York, NY 10016.
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Elbel
authors.affiliation: Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523.
authors.forename: Melissa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pflugh Prescott
authors.affiliation: NYU Institute for Education and Social Policy, 246 Greene Street, New York, NY 10003.
authors.forename: Siddhartha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Aneja
authors.affiliation: 426 Eggers Hall, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244.
authors.forename: Amy E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Schwartz
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D053198:Child Nutrition Sciences / Q000193:education* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006291:Health Policy; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D009519:New York City / Q000453:epidemiology; D063766:Pediatric Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D010806:Physical Education and Training / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010809:Physical Fitness; D012111:Residence Characteristics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012572:School Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012923:Social Class
keywords: nutrition and diet; school health policy; school health program planning; school wellness programs