For children and adolescents, school nutrition programs are a major component of the food environment. Recognizing the central role that school nutrition can play in protecting health, a number of recent federal initiatives have invested substantively in school-based nutrition interventions aimed at improving the quality of foods served in school breakfast and lunch programs (Briefell et al., 2009, Bunnell et al., 2012 and U.S. Department

of Agriculture (USDA), 2010). Improving the selleckchem nutritional quality of food through the establishment of nutrient limits and other healthy food procurement practices in schools has emerged as a viable strategy for assuring a balanced diet and reducing childhood obesity in the U.S. (Briefell et al., 2009 and Robles et al., 2013). National buy MK-2206 agencies, such as the Institute of Medicine (IOM)2 and the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, are supportive and have recommended this strategy as a way to lower

caloric content in school meals, while preserving or improving their nutritional value (Alliance for a Healthier Generation, 2011 and Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies, 2009). Although studies of school-based nutrition interventions are abundant in the literature (Doak et al., 2006, Katz et al., 2008 and Roseman et al., 2011), few have described the core elements of design or the process by which these approaches can be implemented successfully in practice. To date, there are limited comparisons of nutrient changes in school menus after the implementation of school meal standards consistent with the Institute of Medicine, Alliance for a Healthier Generation, or the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)3, especially for however communities with a high prevalence of child obesity. In 2011, a large,

urban school district in Los Angeles County (LAC)4, California incorporated IOM recommendations in their menu planning of school meals for the school year (SY)5 2011–12. Four school districts in suburban Cook County (SCC)6, Illinois implemented similar changes in their school meal programs; these changes aligned with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation school meal recommendations. In both counties, the nutrition interventions were implemented in advance of the USDA Final Rule for the National School Breakfast and Lunch Programs (NSBP/NSLP)7 (USDA, 2012). Both counties were also awardees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s)8Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) 9 program during 2010–2012 ( Bunnell et al., 2012). Because the reach and impact of these nutrition strategies are often not well characterized in the literature, we described key meal program changes by nutrient categories for the five school districts that modified their SY 2011–12 menus to meet nutrition standards recommended by the IOM and the Alliance.