Some New (and FREE) Resources for Schools

Over the past year, I have had the pleasure of working on many school-related resources. Two of these have recently become available online - and can be freely downloaded for use by schools and others.

The Whole Grain In-Service Toolkit for Schools, from General Mills Bell Institute of Health and Nutrition, was designed for school directors and managers to easily train their staff on a variety of topics related to whole grains. The kit provides everything a school nutrition program needs to effortlessly provide 1-hour of training on whole grains, including a set of PowerPoint slides, a whole grain menu activity, and a quiz (for 1 Continuing Education Unit approved by the School Nutrition Association). I was privileged to write the content for this kit; the folks at General Mills used great graphics and wonderful photos made everything look beautiful!

I was also honored to serve as content advisor for a new position paper on Comprehensive Nutrition Services from the American Dietetic Association, the School Nutrition Association, and the Society for Nutrition Education. The joint ADA/SNA/SNE position paper was written by registered dietitians Marilyn Briggs, co-director of the Center for Nutrition in Schools at University of California – Davis (ADA); Constance G. Mueller, retired from the Bloomington (Ill.) Public Schools District 87 (SNA); and Sheila Fleischhacker, nutrition postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina (SNE).The authors write: “Maintaining a long tradition of working together, ADA, SNA and SNE will continue to advocate for positive actions to improve students’ nutritional status, health and academic performance. Additional professional organizations, advocacy groups and stakeholders, with shared issues and values, are encouraged to join in supporting practices and research increasing the effectiveness of comprehensive school nutrition services.” Download a copy for your files - it offers great background and extensive references to support school nutrition services in your local district.