SMART, or School Meals: Achieving Results Together, is the theme for ASFSA this year. All of us want to be SMART—we want to achieve results for our programs and the children we serve. We also want to be SMART and evaluate the impact and results of those programs. That’s where The Journal of Child Nutrition & Management plays an important role. The Journal provides a means for sharing program results with practitioners across the nation. I encourage you to read the Journal to learn about what others are doing and to submit articles reporting results from your programs. Research will help us move the profession ahead and document the positive things we are doing for America’s children.

This issue of the Journal addresses diverse areas in child nutrition, including food safety, professional development, operations, and nutrition education. Lockner and associates provide a commentary on the impact of school fundraisers and the risk of foodborne illness. Increasingly, food safety is of concern in child nutrition and risks for outbreaks may occur outside of school foodservice. Coble and Clodfelter describe a successful program in North Carolina that develops leadership abilities of child nutrition professionals, which could be adopted in other states to foster professional development. Carr et al. present research on the determining factors associated with professionals becoming credentialed School Foodservice and Nutrition Specialists. Results of this study can guide efforts to increase participation in credentialing programs.

Branding has long been used in school foodservice programs, and Yoon et al. report on the current status of and factors associated with the use of brand-name fast foods in Indiana. Frye and associates examine participation rates in research and point out considerations that school foodservice professionals may want to make when collecting information from students.

We will continue to publish the research abstracts presented at the Annual National Conference, and the 2003 Child Nutrition Showcase included many interesting projects. Finally, Brown provides a summary of the research being conducted at the National Food Service Management Institute with several links to project reports that provide useful information for practitioners and researchers alike.

I hope that all readers will find some new information that can be applied in their work settings. I would love to hear your reactions. A dialogue between foodservice professionals is useful as it ensures the value of research being conducted to move the field ahead. Finally, I would like to thank all of the reviewers for their contributions to the Journal. Without you we could not continue to provide high quality research.

Jeannie Sneed, PhD, RD, SFNS
Editor