“Fresh Fruit and Veggie Friday”

My last post was about banning certain junk foods and sodas from vending machines in the hallways of the schools.  This to me is a first and easiest step in a long walk to more healthy schools.  Our children are obese, this needs to be fixed but it will take time and effort.

“Sixteen percent of children and teens ages 6-19– roughly 9 million kids– are considered overweight, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, putting them at risk of conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.  That percentage has more than tripled since 1980.”

Schools know that this is a rising problem- how could they not it is in their faces everyday.  But change takes time, and work, and the biggest problem, funding.  Prepackaged, highly processed foods are not only cheaper but easier to maintain and store over a longer period of time.  Through modeling, nutritional counseling, and persistence there can be reform, and it has been proved by a number of schools in the Washington area. 

A school in Arlington introduced “Fresh Fruit and Veggie Friday” where the entire class would bring a fresh fruit or veggie to class that day as a snack and they would also all “brave” foods they had never tried like the soybean and the teacher said, “they went nuts for that”.

In Spotsylvania County they didn’t stop at simply taking unhealthy foods from vending machines they provide nutritional counseling with a wellness dietitian. 

Instead of teachers having ice cream parties or giving out candy bars or pizza coupons as rewards, for example, Farrell encourages them to hold class outdoors, hand out homework passes or offer verbal praise.

Each of these are steps, small steps, but we are moving forward.  It’s still not enough.  Schools are educating and taking junk foods out but what about the lunches, the main meal the school provides in order to give energy to the students for second half of the school day. 

“We know that a lot of school districts really are taking action to improve the vending machines,” Lear adds.  “But now the tough stuff is getting those cafeteria lines to match our rhetoric.”

Schools face budget-cuts year after year and with so much need for the little money the schools are given I can see how hard it is to allow for more spending in the cafeteria.  But this is obviously affecting the health and well-being of our children.  The habits that these students are forming now could turn out to be life long. 

From a preliminary analysis by Action for Health Kids, a public-private partnership that seeks to foster improved nutrition and increased physical activity in the schools, finds that only 54 percent of school systems nationally have met all of the federal government’s minimum requirements.

Fifty-four percent! How is this possible? This is a problem that needs to be address together by school officials and administration, teachers, the local and national governments, and parents. 

Reviewing the School Cupcake Ban 

By: Karen Pallarito

The Washington Post

January 30, 2007

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/29/AR2007012901388.html?nav=rss_health