Two years ago, as Legislative Chairperson of the CAHPERD I worked with members to advocate for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign several bills into law to eliminate sodas and other highly sweetened beverages and restrict the sale of junk foods in all of California's public schools.
He did. And it appears to have worked according to a study by Sanchez-Vaznaugh and co-investigators which was published in the Journal of Health Affairs. The study authors used eight years of body mass index data from fifth- and seventh-grade students collected as part of California's annual Physical Fitnessgram testing.
The data indicate that before the policies took effect, the rate of overweight students was increasing among all groups in the study -- girls and boys in fifth and seventh grades.
However, in the three-year period after the policies became effective, the increase in the number of overweight children was significantly reduced among fifth-grade boys and seventh-grade students of both sexes throughout California.
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