Abstract
Objective
To describe middle school student attitudes about school drinking fountains, investigate
whether such attitudes are associated with intentions to drink water at school, and
determine how intentions relate to overall water intake.
Methods
Students (n = 3211) in 9 California middle schools completed surveys between 2009
and 2011. We used multivariate linear regression, adjusting for school sociodemographic
characteristics, to examine how attitudes about fountains (5-point scale; higher scores
indicating more positive attitudes) were associated with intentions to drink water
at school and how intentions to drink water at school were related to overall water
intake.
Results
Mean age of students was 12.3 (SD = 0.7) years; 75% were Latino, 89% low income, and
39% foreign born. Fifty-two percent reported lower than recommended overall water
intake (<3 glasses/day), and 30% reported that they were unlikely or extremely unlikely
to drink water at school. Fifty-nine percent reported that school fountains were unclean,
48% that fountain water does not taste good, 33% that fountains could make them sick,
31% that it was not okay to drink from fountains, and 24% that fountain water is contaminated.
In adjusted analyses, attitudes about school drinking fountains were related to intentions
to drink water at school (β = 0.41; P < .001); intentions to drink water at school were also associated with overall water
intake (β = 0.20; P < .001).
Conclusions
Students have negative attitudes about school fountains. To increase overall water
intake, it may be important to promote and improve drinking water sources not only
at school but also at home and in other community environments.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
May 23,
2014
Received:
February 10,
2014
Footnotes
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Identification
Copyright
© 2014 Academic Pediatric Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
