Measuring School Wellness

In 2006, all US school districts that participate in the school meal programs were required to create school wellness policies, and the components for these policies were updated with the 2010 Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act. The Rudd Center has developed several measures to assess the strength and comprehensiveness of school wellness policies.

WellSAT 3.0:

The WellSAT is a quantitative coding tool that is designed to help researchers, state administrators, advocates, and school districts evaluate the strength and comprehensiveness of district wellness policies. The current version of the WellSAT is WellSAT 3.0, which is available at www.wellsat.org.

WellSAT WSCC:

The CDC’s Whole School, Whole Child, Whole Community model illustrates how student and school health include many components. In collaboration with Sandra Chafouleas and the UConn Collaboratory for School and Child Health, Rudd researchers have expanded the WellSAT to include all of the WSCC components – creating the WellSAT WSCC.

WellSAT-I:

Some of our research has found that stronger policies lead to better implementation. However, other studies have found that schools report implementing practices that are not in their policies, or face challenges in implementing some policies. We have explored the views of teachers, administrators, and parents in order to understand how wellness policies are created and implemented.

The Rudd Center has developed a series of interviews that researchers can use to assess policy implementation, called the WellSAT-I. These interviews are designed to match each item of the WellSAT 3.0.

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Federal Requirements

Originally, policies were required to:

  • Goals for nutrition education and physical activity to promote student wellness;
  • Nutritional guidelines for all foods available on each school campus during the school day;
  • An assurance that reimbursable school meals follow federal law;
  • A plan for measuring policy implementation; and
  • The involvement of parents, students, the school food authority, school board, school administrators, and the public in the development of the policy.

New regulations released in 2016 added that policies must ensure that school districts:

  • Review and consider evidence-based strategies to promote student wellness;
  • Comply with federal competitive food nutrition standards, called Smart Snacks, for all foods sold on campus during the school day;
  • Prohibit marketing of all foods and beverages that do not meet Smart Snacks standards;
  • Permit all stakeholders to participate in policy development, implementation, review and updates;
  • Report annually to the community about policy content, implementation and updates;
  • Complete triennial assessments on compliance, alignment with model policies, and progress towards goals; and
  • Designate one or more officials as responsible for school-level compliance with the policy.

For the past fifteen years, Rudd research and tools have supported the importance of strong school wellness policies. The results of a three-year study in twelve middle schools found that supporting strong nutrition policies in schools was associated with a healthier body mass trajectory.

WellSAT 3.0

The WellSAT is a quantitative coding tool that is designed to help researchers, state administrators, advocates, and school districts evaluate the strength and comprehensiveness of district wellness policies.  The current version of the WellSAT is WellSAT 3.0, which is available at www.wellsat.org.

This publication explains how the WellSAT 3.0 was developed in response to the federal law, expert feedback, and research.

The WellSAT was originally developed with a team of researchers from four states (Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Minnesota) funded by Healthy Eating Research.  The original measure was published in 2009. With input from a diverse advisory committee, this measure was simplified and placed online in 2010.  In 2015 it was updated to WellSAT 2.0, and in 2018, updated again to WellSAT 3.0.

WellSAT WSCC: Think About the Link

The CDC’s Whole School, Whole Child, Whole Community model illustrates how student and school health include many components.

In collaboration with Sandra Chafouleas and the UConn Collaboratory for School and Child Health, Rudd researchers have expanded the WellSAT to include all of the WSCC components – creating the WellSAT WSCC. The WellSAT WSCC is one component of a suite of Think About the Link tools available from the CSCH he to help school administrators, teachers, and parents understand the ten components of the WSCC and identify how to implement evidence-based policies and practices in their schools.

Resources:

WellSAT-I

The Rudd Center has developed a series of interviews that researchers can use to assess policy implementation, called the WellSAT-I. These interviews are designed to match each item of the WellSAT 3.0. The questions are organized as follows:

  • Each item number matches WellSAT 3.0.
  • Many interview questions can be answered by more than one person. Depending on your research question and the personnel in your district, choose which individual will be asked each question. You may want to ask more than one person certain questions to evaluate whether their answers are the same. Relatedly, some items are typically implemented at the district level, while others are implemented at the school level. As a result, some questions are designed to be answered by a district level employee (e.g., food service director), while others are more appropriately answered by someone who works in one school building (e.g., principal, teacher). The best person to answer each question may vary depending on your research question and the configuration of your district.
  • The coding follows the logic of the WellSAT with a “0” indicating that a practice is not implemented at all; “1” indicating that the practice is implemented partially or inconsistently; and “2” indicating that the respondent is confident that the practice is implemented fully and consistently. We have adjusted the wording to reflect these ideas for each topic area.
  • A previous version of this measure that matched WellSAT 2.0 has been tested, but this new version is intended for those scoring a policy using WellSAT 3.0.

WellSAT-I Measures:

Individual Subsections:

Infographics

WellSAT WSCC Podcast

In this podcast, CSCH Program Manager, Helene Marcy, interviews CSCH Co-Director Sandra Chafouleas and CSCH Steering Committee Member Marlene Schwartz about their work developing the WellSAT WSCC Tool
Listen to the Podcast