Nutrition Education in US Schools

 

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Schools play an important role in helping students establish healthy eating behaviors, by providing:

• Nutritious and appealing foods and beverages.
• Consistent and accurate messages about good nutrition.
• Ways to learn about and practice healthy eating.¹

Nutrition education is a vital part of a comprehensive health education program and empowers children with knowledge and skills to make healthy food and beverage choices.^2-8 

Making opportunities for nutrition education in schools is important.

US students receive less than 8 hours of required nutrition education each school year,⁹ far below the 40 to 50 hours that are needed to affect behavior change.^10,11 Additionally, the percentage of schools providing required instruction on nutrition and dietary behaviors decreased from 84.6% to 74.1% between 2000 and 2014.⁹
Given the important role that diet plays in preventing chronic diseases and supporting good health, schools would ideally provide students with more hours of nutrition education instruction and engage teachers and parents in nutrition education activities.^{5, 12}  However, because schools face many demands, school staff can consider ways to add nutrition education into the existing schedule.¹¹

Schools can include nutrition education throughout the school day.

Nutrition education can be incorporated throughout the school day and in various locations within a school. This provides flexibility allowing schools to use strategies that work with their settings, daily schedule, and resources.

In the Classroom
Nutrition education can take place in the classroom, either through a stand-alone health education class or combined into other subjects including^2,5:

• Counting with pictures of fruits and vegetables.
• Learning fractions by measuring ingredients for a recipe.
• Examining how plants grow.
• Learning about cultural food traditions.

Nutrition education should align with the National Health Education Standards and incorporate the characteristics of an effective health education curriculum.