New Interactive Website from Bridging the Gap on State Laws for School Snack Foods and Beverages

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Bridging the Gap, a Robert Wood Johnson funded national research program focused on understanding how policy and environmental factors affect the health of today’s youth, has created the new interactive website about school snack foods and beverages State Laws for School Snack Foods and Beverages.

The website covers laws in all fifty states over the course of seven school years and displays the information in colorful, easy to understand visuals. A map of a school is found on the website, which is interactive and allows users to click on each area where foods and beverages may be served at school. By clicking on an area the user gets an up to date summary on the current national status of laws for that topic, and is given links to more specific related issues.

Bridging the Gap created this interactive webpage with the assistance of the Center for Digital Information, a company who assist in illustrating relevant, current research in visually appealing ways. By making the website visually appealing, interactive, and easy to use, they hope that more people will have access to understanding the current laws and policies throughout the country.

The areas that are covered by Bridging the Gap’s new site are school stores, evening events, a la carte, vending machines, class parties and fund raisers. These areas are all places where competitive foods are still sold in many parts of the country. The also created profiles for each state that show the status of laws for each topic, and break it down into visual, colorful graphs.

This website not only shows which states have laws regarding each topic, but also shows whether the laws in place are weak, strong, or include a complete ban on competitive or snack foods. There are many ways like this that the data can be broken down, including by state, by year, by grade level, by venue, and by specific nutritional standards.

For more information Bridging the Gap will be hosting a webinar on Tuesday, February 4, 2014 at 11:00 ET, where they will discuss the different features the website offers, discuss the current national perspective on school snack foods and beverages, and answer any questions about the research. Click here to register.