Policies that restrict sweetened beverage availability may reduce consumption in elementary-school children.

OBJECTIVE We investigated whether having a policy regarding the availability of sweetened beverages in school was associated with children's purchase and total weekly and daily consumption of sweetened beverages. DESIGN Data were obtained from 10 719 children aged 9-13 years and 2065 elementary schools in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten cohort. Multilevel logistic regression was used to determine the magnitude and significance of relationships between the availability of different beverages and purchase of sweetened beverages at school and overall consumption of beverages. RESULTS The purchase of sweetened beverages by children in school was strongly associated with the administrative policy of sweetened beverage availability. Compared with children in schools without an administrative policy that allowed sweetened beverages, children in schools with the policy were three times more likely to be either occasional or frequent consumers of sweetened beverages. CONCLUSIONS A policy of availability of sweetened beverages makes an independent contribution to children's purchase and consumption of sweetened beverages in the 5th grade year.