Sweetened beverage restriction in schools is associated with adequacy of facilities and personnel resources

Schools sell sweetened beverages to children in the face of mounting evidence that sweetened beverages are harmful to child health. Recent recommendations suggest that schools only offer healthy alternatives to sweetened beverages for sale in schools. Schools' ability and motivation to adopt these recommendations are tempered by the need to generate revenue through beverage fundraising efforts. In this study, we examine the relationships among schools' federal funding, personnel, and facilities resources and school administrators' reports of the availability of sweetened beverages and healthy alternative beverages in the school environment using data from 1,327 schools in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study‐Kindergarten Cohort 5th grade panel. Overall, we found that schools with greater resources are more likely to report that sweetened beverages and healthy alternatives are offered for sale outside of the meals programs. These findings suggest that beverage sales in schools are a result of not only the need for fundraising, but also the capacity to organize and plan beverage fundraising, the discretionary income of students, and other factors associated with greater resources in the school. To restrict beverage sales in schools, multifaceted policy interventions that address funding needs and fundraising practices will be needed.