Anchorage School District
District
![Students playing with single serve cheese at lunch.]([{"url":"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/f_auto,q_auto,t_image_size_1/v1761784702/asdk12org/vj0m1mwmpmgz2bmn79wj/20240905-_ABE1011.jpg","width":256},{"url":"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/f_auto,q_auto,t_image_size_2/v1761784702/asdk12org/vj0m1mwmpmgz2bmn79wj/20240905-_ABE1011.jpg","width":512},{"url":"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/f_auto,q_auto,t_image_size_3/v1761784702/asdk12org/vj0m1mwmpmgz2bmn79wj/20240905-_ABE1011.jpg","width":800},{"url":"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/f_auto,q_auto,t_image_size_4/v1761784702/asdk12org/vj0m1mwmpmgz2bmn79wj/20240905-_ABE1011.jpg","width":1200},{"url":"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/f_auto,q_auto/v1761784702/asdk12org/vj0m1mwmpmgz2bmn79wj/20240905-_ABE1011.jpg","width":1440}])
Anchorage School District Wellness Initiative Evaluation
Did students eat more lunch when they had longer lunch periods and more movement opportunities?
What is the Anchorage School District Wellness Initiative?
The Anchorage School District (ASD) started a Wellness Initiative in 2019. Schools that were part of the Wellness Initiative gave students 25-30 minutes for lunch and recess with planned movement breaks in a day. These schools were compared with schools who gave students 20 minutes or less for lunch and recess without planned movement breaks. ASD made the Wellness Initiative a policy for all elementary schools in 2023.
The Study
What Happened
Between 2022 and 2025, researchers:
- Collected physical activity data from students, and collected school data, surveys, and interviews at 21 ASD elementary schools
- Weighed 10,00 students’ school meals before and after lunch to see how much students ate
What We Are Learning:
Results from 2022-2023
- Students at schools with more time for lunch and recess ate more of their main dish, grain, and fruit.
- Students who had recess before lunch ate more of their main dish, fruit and vegetables, and drank more milk.
- The Wellness Initiative policies and recess before lunch have great potential to better student nutrition and decrease food waste.
The research team plans to finish collecting data in Fall 2025 and then share more results.
Thank You!
Thank you to the students, parents, teachers, and staff in ASD who participated in this project and who are working to support student wellness!
The study team included researchers from the University of Alaska Anchorage and Fairbanks, Merrimack College, the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, and the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. This research was funded exclusively by The National Institutes of Health. The funders did not play any role in the data collection, analyses, or interpretation of study findings.