Investigating How to Align Schools' Marketing Environments With Federal Standards for Competitive Foods.
Limiting food and beverage marketing to children is a promising approach to influence children's nutrition behavior. School-based marketing influences nutrition behavior and studies have consistently found marketing for nonnutritious foods and beverages in schools. No studies have examined the resources necessary to align school marketing environments with federal school nutrition standards. The purpose of this study was to determine how to improve school marketing environments so that they align with new federal competitive food nutrition standards.



We assessed food marketing environments in 3 Portland, Maine schools using the Food and Beverage Marketing Survey (FBMS) and provided technical assistance to bring their marketing environments into conformity with the federal competitive food regulations, tracking resources and strategies for marketing removal.



Noncompliant marketing was significantly reduced pre- to postintervention. Intervention strategies were facilitated by the School Health Coordinator and school-based wellness teams.



Low monetary resources were required to remove marketing not compliant with federal nutrition standards for foods sold in schools. Several key challenges remain to sustain efforts. This study provides timely information for policymakers to support crafting policies that address the realities of school nutrition environments and universal enforcement challenges.
School of Community and Population Health, University of New England, 716 Stevens Avenue, Portland, ME 04103.
Michele
M
Polacsek
Colby College, Mayflower Hill 5838, Waterville, ME 04901.
Liam M
LM
O'Brien
Portland Public Schools, 92 Waldron Way, Portland, ME 04102.
Elizabeth
E
Pratt
Department of Exercise, Health, and Sport Sciences, University of Southern Maine, 37 College Avenue, Gorham, ME 04038.
Janet
J
Whatley-Blum
ChangeLab Solutions, 2201 Broadway, Suite 502, Oakland, CA 94612.
Sabrina
S
Adler
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004465:Economic Competition; D005522:Food Services / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008281:Maine; D040541:Marketing / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000592:standards*; D012572:School Health Services; D014481:United States
child and adolescent health; nutrition and diet; organization and administration of school health programs; public health; school health policy