New Questions to Consider for Planning Successful School-based Drinking Water Interventions

A new paper from researcher Jodi Stookey in Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism outlines what factors to consider when designing effective school-based drinking water interventions.

Experimenting with changes to drinking water systems in schools may have positive effects on weight and risk of obesity for children, but there are particular conditions of the intervention that may maximize these effects. The success depends on factors such as the initial weight status, total beverage intake pattern, dietary restraint, diet composition and activity level of the target population. Strategic planning helps to create and sustain these particular conditions needed for the best possible outcomes for the intervention.

This paper outlines some important questions to consider when planning a drinking water intervention. These questions are motivated by significant results from randomized controlled trials. In addition, the paper looks at the recently successful school-based drinking-water intervention in New York City to understand the underlying conditions that may have contributed to its success.

School-based drinking-water interventions have the potential to benefit millions of children worldwide who are at risk of becoming obese.

Read the paper here.