Saturday, March 14, 2009
Heathier school lunches
The role of our schools is to teach good health habits. How can we teach good nutrition in our classrooms and then send our students to the cafeteria to buy junk food? My friend is the head cook at one of our school cafeterias. When she questioned her boss about the sale of junk food, she was told that the cafeteria needed to be financially self-supporting; the sale of daily lunches does not bring in sufficient income to pay all of the cafeteria expenses, so added sales are needed. The article, “Studies Suggest School Cafeterias Still Need to Trim the Fat”, claims that school lunches are getting healthier. I would have to agree, at least on the elementary level in our district. Items that were once fried are now baked, and pizza is offered only once a week. Most often fresh fruit or unsweetened apple sauce is offered. However, that doesn’t mean students are eating them. When junk food is an option, many students opt to purchase those items and forego the healthy choices. Sometimes well-meaning parents, like me, do not even know what their child is buying for lunch. When I questioned my son about why he needed more lunch money when I had just put a deposit into his lunch account, he revealed he had been getting ice cream everyday along with his lunch. This was a few years ago; now, at his former elementary school, parents may put a junk food block on their child’s account. The school has a responsibility to teach good nutrition and to make choosing healthy foods for lunch easy for their students.
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I completely agree with you. In my reflection I raise the same question. How exactly is it helping our schools to prevent overweight and obesity issues when our schools continue to have no ban or food restrictions in our cafeterias. According to (Falkner 2001)"On any given day in the U.S. more than 54 million children attend school where they consume over 50% of their daily calories". This is alarming because many students are receiving both breakfast and lunch at our schools. Also, in 2006 The American Beverage association agreed that "new guidelines were set to remove softdrinks from schools. They will be replaced with healthier options such as water, milk, sports drinks, and unsweetened juices in order to promote a balanced diet". If this is true were any of Ohio's schools a part of this plan? As a teacher I teach Health each week. I find it absolutely absurd that I teach about eating healthy snacks etc and for breakfast our kids are getting mini-doughnuts, poptarts (13 g of sugar), Cocoroos (15 g of sugar), and Honey Nut Scooters (10 g of sugar). Does anyone else think there is something wrong with this?
ReplyDeleteThe article on "Federal Bill Targets Junk In Schools" states that the current law prohibits sale of narrowly defined 'foods of minimal nutritional value in the cafeteria during meal times". This definition leaves a lot to the imagination. I find that our school offers Pop-Tarts for breakfast, a food I consider to be of very little, if any, nutritional value. We also sell ice cream, slushies, and Gatorades. We also have a vending machine, although the elementary students are limited to using it only on Fridays. The idea that teachers, as role models, should be "junk free" as well in their lunch room, is one for argument. As adults, we should be able to decide for ourselves if we want to have soda or other junk food in our lunch. ("Ore. teachers want a bite...") Teachers need a time and place just for them, without having to worry about being a role model.
ReplyDeleteJenny- I agree with your point that schools seem to be providing healthier options for the actual school lunches themselves, and have witnessed this at the schools that I have been a substitute in (ex. using wheat bread instead of white for grilled cheese). I took a children's health/nutrition course in college, and we had to create a school lunch menu for one week. It was pretty difficult to make sure we met the goals for the different food groups. (FYI: our professor told us that KETCHUP is considered a VEGETABLE!!!)Also, I agree with your point thtat just because it is offered doesn't mean that kids are going to eat it (remember our class discussion on how much food is thrown away?) I am of the belief that although it is ideal to eat healthy food as much as possible, it is okay to have "junk food" in moderation. The problem arrises when kids only want to eat the junk. Maybe schools lunches should take after Jessica Seinfeld's recipies in "Deceptively Delicious" and start hididng vegetables so kids don't even know they are eating them! (On second thought that's probably not too legal...especially with all of the allergies that are out there now)
ReplyDeleteYes, Amanda, there is something wrong with that picture...I know in our district the dietician is working to gather political support to update those nutritional guidelines for schools-including ketchup as a vegetable.)(Unless maybe we serve it by the spoonful!)
ReplyDeleteKari, I like your idea of hiding the veggies-maybe informing the parents would help with the allergy question? Another questionit raises is whether it moves us away from educating about healthy choices to...well, force feeding, I guess. I guess we come back to what is our objective: improving health/fighting obesity or educating for long-term good health choices? Or both?
I'm still trying to decide about the teacher choice issue. I surely don't want anyone telling me that I can't have my coffee, or chocolate, or whatever. But again, is our "role-modeling" just for show? I don't think being a role model means we have to be perfect, but shouldn't we really be who we say we are? I think maybe it goes back to what Kari said about moderation...if we believe in it and try to live that way, then that's what we'll "model." (Of course it also goes back to the fact that our students are not yet "mature" comsumers, and they don't understand that the Snickers they are seeing us eat is a reasoned choice...so are we back to sneaking our snacks behind closed doors....?)
I definitely get the feeling that everyone is in the majority that school cafterias provide unhealthy selections for breakfast and lunch. Amanda's presentation about childhood obesity is the outcome of many schools taking the more "economical route" of serving America's kids. Of course kids are battling health issues like hypertension and diabetes because they have poor eating habits supported by poor food choices. Amanda mentioned in her "Legislative Response" portion, that programs have been designed to reduce childhood obesity and have been at the legislature target for both state and federal levels. Well, I think if more districts had the funding and resources available, kids could have healthier selections.
ReplyDeleteIn this day and age it is very sad and scary to know that the majority our future generation,according to Amanda"s presentation,will be obese. This is very disheartening. I just recently had to meet with a mother and her 14 year old son because of weight issue, the young man weighs over 350 lbs. Mom stated that she couldn't control his eating habits. Why not? Isn't she the mother? Well, how can a parent try to teach healthy habits, when they themselves are not practicing it? The themselves are obese, as is in this case.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a fantastic idea to put a block on what kids can eat at school! I can clearly remember doing the same exact thing as your son- pitching the healthy stuff and eating the junk. How does this "block" work Jen? I would like to know what exactly the parents do? And how the school monitors the child?
ReplyDeleteI like the block idea also and I think that I've heard somewhere that parents are able to view what was purchased on their child's accounts. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Of course, with the younger grades, we know the options they can choose, but again, are they eating the "good" stuff? When my kids were in Kindergarten and 1st they had a lunch monitor(s) who would not let them eat a "dessert" item until the main dish was eaten. At first I wasn't sure if I liked that idea and then realized, it was a pretty good one. But it proves that it takes some effort to educate the young..Hopefully some of that follows through to the later years. I do think that most parents want to be pro-active.(hopefully my opinion won't change once I'm in a classroom!)The Eat This Not That Book would be a great aide in educating the parents.
ReplyDeleteMy kids' schools have what they call "point-of-sale" where everything is computerized. They each have a card and an account (which you can deposit money in--but I think they can pay cash as well.) When they swipe their card, everything they buy is recorded. I can go online and see that my daughter has bought extra snacks. (Of course, that only tells you what they bought-not what they ate.) I know that when a card is swiped, if a kid has allergies or is not allowed to have a particular food, that comes up on the screen. My understanding is that more and more schools are moving to this system (because it saves time and money-and also keeps the parents more informed.)
ReplyDeleteWe have this sytem at the school I teach at but I never realized that it shows everything that they buy on the card. I think that is a great idea to get both the family and the school working together to improve the students life. This way if they are not making healthy choices then they always have the option to just start packing for their child because I doubt a student would trade a unhealthy snack for a healthy one. And I guess if they do atleast some kid is getting something healthy to eat.
ReplyDelete