Monday’s reauthorization of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 by President Barack Obama is a welcome move in the eyes of school officials in the Valley.
The $4.5 billion federal initiative is designed to provide more meals to school children and increase accessibility to healthy food for low-income children, while also allowing the U.S. Department of Agriculture the authority to set nutritional standards and putting in place standards to guide school wellness policies.
It also offers a six-cent increase in federal reimbursements per meal in schools that meet nutritional guidelines.
Waverly Central School District Superintendent Mike McMahon expects the new rules to govern everything from meal portioning to recipes used, and even how lunches are served in the cafeteria.
Alice Bennett, who oversees the Athens Area School District’s food services as a registered dietitian with Nutrition Inc., feels the law could not only bring opportunities for Athens’ popular Future Farmers of America program, but also lead other schools to utilize dietitians or consultants in order to accurately meet the new standards.
Many steps have already been taken in the Waverly, Athens and Sayre school districts to rid their hallways and cafeterias of junk food in exchange for more healthier options. These schools have also implemented practices to make traditional lunchroom staples, such as pizza, better for student nutrition.
According to Sayre Area School District Food Services Director Sue Port, improving student nutrition is a top priority among school officials that would have continued with or without the implementation of the new law.
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Jrad, I partially agree with what you are saying, but the school lunch program and snacks given at school are not helping any either. In my daughter's school, junky snacks are actively marketed to the children. The lunch lady reminds them everyday how much money they have in their snack accounts and asks them what kind of snack they want in addition to their school lunch. The choices offered consist of greasy chips, sugary drinks, ice cream, cookies, etc. For this reason, I never put money in my daughter's snack account even though it can also be used to buy milk when she packs lunch. She complains that she is the only kid in her class that doesn't get snacks with lunch. Add this to the fact that every school sponsored event involves serving of sugary snacks and the kids are rewarded in the classroom with more candy and sugar and it is easy to come to the conclusion that schools are a huge part of the problem. We have my daughter in extremely strenuous extracurricular sports for 15 hours a week, she gets dessert only once a week at home. She is thin and muscular, but puts on weight very quickly during week-long breaks from her sports schedule. I can assure you that her tendency to gain weight has nothing to do with what we are doing at home. No Doritos or junk food in my house. While I am not a huge fan of regulation either, I don't like the idea that the schools are making tons of money from marketing junk food to easy targets (children who have limited self-control) when their parents aren't around to help them with appropriate choices. All of the laws involving authority of schools over children are based on the concept that teachers and administrators act in the place of parents in the parents' absence. It is irresponsible to be in a role of that kind and allow the kind of excessive eating that goes on in many schools.
This is something Ihave just started to wonder about
SINCE: There seems to be evidence linking too little sleep with obesity
AND: there is mounting evidence that light pollution can interfere with sleep
QUESTION: could the growing light pollution in this country be one oft the contributing factors to the obesity epidemic?
Wait a minute…. What does this have to do with Reform School? Oh. Never mind…
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My son came home the other day. "Mommy, I had a fresh plumb on my tray and all the bread is wheat now!" Thank you Michelle Obama if you had anything to do with this! I have been whining to officials for years. It is imperative that our children be fed well in order to learn well.
But, on the same note, please dont limit the restaurants in my city from their yummy fattening sugary menus. That is the occassional treat we go out for, after eating right all week !!
I completely agree with you on this one. When I was in middle and high school, we had actual PE classes where we were expected to go to the locker room, change into gym clothes, and actually *do* stuff. We played soccer, basketball, kickball, and ran track. And we did it everyday, whether it was blazing hot or freezing cold. And it was required every year; we could not graduate without those PE credits. Then again, we weren't worried about boat loads of mandatory state testing either.
The photograph looks more appetizing then the school lunches where I come from. There the lunch consisted of a ketchup packet – vegetable, a piece of bread, a soy hamburger patty, and milk. There's your full balanced meal. Personally, it's not enough to keep a growing child from starving, especially when most of the children were receiving free or reduced price lunches. I called the state for an investigation many times, but no answers.
If low income/high obesity areas put as much or more focus on teaching life skills than college prep courses, I believe we would see an improvement in overall quality of life for those students and their families. Poverty and obesity are linked and the- no child left behind – cram test answers into brains – model isn't breaking the cycle. These kids need daily p.e., etiquette (!) and home ec classes from preschool and kindergarten through 12th grade along with trade skill training starting in jr high or high school.
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the best
A bigger problem than a "nutrition program" is the removal of physical education from schools. It used to be mandatory, just as proficiency in math, english and literature were. Now we've got a generation of lard a$$ XBoxers and everyone seems surprised!! Kids don't even get outside much anymore because parents rely on TV and game consoles as babysitters and electronic parents. A kid should have to run the 440 in a "normal" amount of time during middle and high school. Teach these kids that exercise is key with GOOD nutrition for quality of life….unless they all wanna die before they're 50.
Yum slimy Broccoli.
I would have loved to send my kids homemade lunches. But the principal of our last school would do inspections and take anything out that might cause an allergic reaction to somebody else. No PB and J ( and I make our own PB and J), no refrid. food, no food that wasn't sealed properly. I finally just took my kids out of school because of the food nazi who got kickbacks for school lunch sales.
A good school lunch program would give some dignity and some professionalism to the "lunch lady" job–planning menus and cooking fresh meals. Heck, I would be a lunch lady if that's what I got to do and got paid a decent salary for it. Not only does the healthier food cost money, but you have to pay the people who cook it. You'll definitely need more lunch room staff, not to mention breakfast which most schools serve these days, also. It's easy to arrange prepackaged food with 1-2 people. It takes many more to pull off a lunch service for hundreds of kids. I'm all for a plan like this if there is funding.
Eliminate the obscene subsidies on corn and meat. That would make foods made with high-fructose corn syrup more expensive.
I can just imagine that the added fruits and veggies are going to be that canned crap. In my opinion there is no faster way to turn kids off from vegitables than canned green beans and peas that have been soaking in a vat of water for a few hours. Even canned fruit isn't the greatest. But what school district can afford good well-cooked fresh veggies (other than the rich suburban schools)?
Changing the food in the cafeterias would be a start but to some degree I would caution against that. Although the food that the children get is not nutrituous in anyway; sometimes its the only meal the child would get all day long. Many children fill up at lunch time so that their hunger isn't as prominent at night. Although the food is bad–it's filling. Growing up my family didn't have alot of money so my mom had to buy pasta and other filling foods that may not have been good for us, but at least we weren't hungry. As long as they replace the heavy food that fills the children up and not just with vegetables since the kids won't eat them. They really do need to take the pop and vending machines out of the schools though.
that's a truly sad story and very believable
Well stated, but it gets complex & expensive when not only "fresh," but "good prep" are involved. Back to idea 1, take responsibility for your own kid and send him w/ a bagged lunch. Or I guess on busy days maybe some kids could afford a 6-8 dollar gourmet meal.
in the 70's/80's we had the same crap – frozen processed foods reconstituted. total junk. Most of the time I had a bagged lunches, so did my friends. School lunch was usually for those on welfare (free lunch). But at the same time my lunch might contain doritos. Lunch was not a major meal though, breakfast & dinner were and those were provided by my parents and they were healthy. I think it has way more to do with what goes on at home. But totally eliminating the worst of the worst in school lunches such as sugary sodas, juices loaded with syrup, fat loaded pizza/fries/nuggets and empty carbs like mac & cheese, will certainly help especially if parents are lazy at home and do the Taco Bell thing every night. We have to start somewhere.
There is a rural school district near here that has one elementary school where the levels of poverty mirror those of many inner-city districts. Until recently, each school in that district had individual food service. The cooks in that particular school made sure that those children had a good breakfast and a healthy, homestyle, substantial lunch, and they did it on a shoestring by peeling fresh potatoes, working with local growers to get the best prices on eggs, meat, and the freshest produce, and baking from scratch. The meals may not always have been perfectly balanced, but those "lunch ladies" sure tried, and made sure that no one went hungry, even if they went to bed without dinner. And the kids ate it, including the green beans and buttered carrots. Then, to make sure that the menus met the requirements of federal child nutrition guidelines and to save money, the district went to a centralized food service system, which means, of course, that now those children are fed a steady diet of frozen french fries, pizza, chicken nuggets, instant mashed potatoes, frozen burritoes, etc. , with sides of broccoli and something called "kids munchie mix" that fill the cafeteria trash cans. It seems that this nation has lost all common sense (and I'm a Democrat, so don't accuse me of sounding like a tea-partier for the common sense comment).
Kids need the education in a fun manner and parents need it even more. If the parents only supply their kids with healthy options and make it fun and relevant then their kids have no choice but to eat healthier. This is a serious problem and needs a solution and fast. http://Www.diet-myths.com has great info on weight loss
This is a nice idea… if they fund it. Considering how little schools are alloted per student per lunch, I am suprised they manage to feed them any type of meal, nutritious or not. Fresh produce doesn't come cheap.
Of course kids need better nutrition……………..don't need a BLOG to tell me this.. NEWSFLASH…Sun will set in the west and rise in the east…..
i am happy the govt is lookin for solutions to fight and battle the epidemic of childhood obesity. When i was in school, we did not eat proceesed food and we did not have vending machines.
People say kids won't eat healthy foods. They are 100% wrong. I have seen it with my own eyes. When elementary children are presented with fresh, healthy food (home style and salad bar), not only will they eat it, they will rave about it. It has to taste good though. You can't give them a dried out chicken breast with a slimy side of cooked broccoli.
I wholeheartedly agree, but when I look back at what I was served in school I see much room for improvement. Our vending machines were turned off during lunch and in middle school, the principal would even inspect lunches brought from home and confiscate candy or soda. But the food the school served was disgusting and not healthy. Stale chips and greasy cheese sauce, deep-fried "crispitos," etc. Veggies were soft and droopy. I still won't eat canned veggies because of this. Fresh fruit and yogurt were occasionally made available. For an extra cost. So those on reduced-cost or free lunch programs couldn't get them.
No one said it would eliminate it.
This is just one small step in the attempt to treat the problem. No one is expecting this to be a cure.
I really doubt providing school children a 'healthy lunch' will eliminate the obesity epidemic. It's not their lunches which are making them fat, it's the 8 hours of TV/Video games, the bag of doritos, and the 6-pack of soda after school which are making children obese. Sure, the healthy lunch is a step in the right direction, but more intervention (from parents, not the government) is needed.