Many aspects of modern life--including advertising, the abundance of food, lack of nutrition information at restaurants, and large portion sizes
--make healthy eating a challenge. Policy and environmental approaches can make it easier for people to eat well and be physically active.
Visit www.cspinet.org/nutritionpolicy to:
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Identify policy options that support and promote healthy eating and physical activity
Find model policies, background materials, reports, and fact sheets
Get up-to-date stats on the impact of poor nutrition and inactivity on health and health-
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• care costs
Learn more about what other communities and states are doing to address obesity
Sign up to receive updates and Action Alerts on nutrition and physical activity policy
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SmartMouth.org is a website that uses games to teach middle-school-aged children (and their parents and teachers) how the food environment influences their food choices and how to eat well. Kids can see how their favorite restaurant foods stack up, play "true or false" with a food industry spokesman, and "bite back" by asking food companies and government officials to support healthy eating. Take a peek at http://SmartMouth.org and share it with the children in your life.

CSPI's School Foods Tool Kit contains resources to help parents, health professionals, community groups, teachers and school administrators improve the nutritional quality of the meals, snacks and drinks available to students. The Kit includes:
* model school nutrition policies,
* fact sheets about children's diets and health,
* advice about how to influence school decision makers and build support for
change, and
* sample flyers, testimony, press releases, and other model materials.
It also includes descriptions of numerous schools that have made positive
changes to their school foods (without losing money).
The Kit is available (free of charge) at www.cspinet.org/schoolfoodkit/
In the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004, the U.S. Congress established a new requirement that all school districts with a federally-funded school meals program develop and implement wellness policies that address nutrition and physical activity by the start of the 2006-2007 school year.
The National Alliance for Nutrition and Activity (NANA, www.nanacoalition.org
) convened a work group of more than 50 health, physical activity, nutrition, and education professionals from a variety of national and state organizations to develop a set of model policies for local school districts. Model policies, background materials and other resources are provided to help schools develop and implement school wellness policies, including:
* Improving School Foods
* Physical Activity Opportunities and Physical Education
* Nutrition and Physical Activity Promotion and Food Marketing
* School Health Councils
* Monitoring and Policy Review
The Model School Wellness Policies are available (free of charge) at: www.schoolwellnesspolicies.org/

CSPI’s Dispensing Junk summarizes the results of a national survey of the contents of school vending machines. The survey found that in both middle and high schools,
75% of beverage options and 85% of snacks are of poor nutritional quality. The report describes how the high prevalence of junk food in school vending machines does not support students' ability to make healthy food choices or parents’ ability to feed their children well. The report calls for federal, state and/or local governments, schools and school districts to enact policies to ensure that foods sold out of vending machines, school stores, fundraisers, a la carte, and other venues
are healthful and make a positive
contribution to children’s diets and health.
Dispensing Junk is available (free of charge) at:
http://cspinet.org /Dispensing_Junk.pdf
CSPI’s report, Pestering Parents, outlines how food marketing aimed at children makes it more difficult for parents, other caregivers and schools to feed children a healthy diet. It describes:
* the effect of marketing on children’s food choices,
* the types of venues and techniques used to market food to children,
* the importance of nutrition to children’s health, and
* current regulation of food marketing aimed at children in the U.S.
The report offers recommendations for parents, industry, schools and governments to help reduce the marketing of low-nutrition foods to children.
The report is available (free of charge) at: www.cspinet.org/pesteringparents

CSPI’s report, Anyone’s Guess, describes the role of restaurant foods in American diets and their impact on
Americans’ health. The report makes the case for national,
? state or local legislation to require calorie and other nutrition labeling on menus and menu boards at fast food and other chain restaurants.
Anyone’s Guess is available (free of charge) at: www.cspinet.org/restaurantreport.pdf
Americans who feel tempted to order larger portion sizes for just a little extra money might be surprised to learn about the nutritional costs of those
“bargains.” From Wallet to
Waistline looks at the financial and caloric costs of upgrading to larger portion sizes for single-serve foods at fast-food restaurants, convenience stores, and other retail food establishments. The results show that upgrading to larger serving sizes often increases price only modestly, but s ubstantially increases calorie and fat contents. “Value” marketing (providing more food for just a little more money) is a technique that is profitable for food companies, but results in large portion sizes and contributes to overeating and obesity.
From Wallet to Waistline is available (free of charge) at: ww.cspinet.org/w2w.pdf
For more information, contact Dr. Margo Wootan at the Center for Science in the Public Interest at < nutritionpolicy@cspinet.org
> or 202-777-8352.