June 16, 2011, Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times
Fewer than 1 in 5 of the children who relied on free or reduced-price lunches during the 2009-2010 school year in California received subsidized meals last July, according to a new report.
That represents a 15% drop in participation in summer meals programs from the year before at a time when enrollment in other federal nutrition programs is increasing because of the lingering effects of the recession.
The report by California Food Policy Advocates blamed cuts to the state’s education budget, which caused many school districts to eliminate summer learning and enrichment programs. That reduced the places where needy students received breakfasts, lunches and snacks during the summer months.
The “summer nutrition gap” jeopardizes the health and academic success of about 2 million low-income children in California, where many families are facing unemployment and other financial hardships that have them struggling to meet basic needs, the report said.
This growing gap is part of a nationwide trend, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Food Research and Action Center, which calculated that just 1 in 7 American children who received subsidized lunches uring the school year received them last summer.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture funds three summer nutrition programs that subsidize meals served at schools, parks, recreation centers and other locations where at least half the children are eligible for free or reduced-price school meals.
Participation in those programs in California peaked at more than 800,000 children a day in 2002, according to the report, which was based on data from the state Department of Education for the month of July. About 410,000 California children received subsidized lunches in July 2010.
Local governments, nonprofits and other groups have been stepping in to reach more children using funding from the federal Summer Food Service Program, which reimburses for meals served at community sites. Participation in that program increased 26% from July 2009 to July 2010 but did not make up for losses in the National School Lunch Program and Seamless Summer Food Option, which are school-based. Meals subsidized by school-based programs were offered at about 4,200 sites last July, fewer than half the number the previous year.
The Los Angeles Unified School District, the state’s largest, has increased the number of sites that offer free breakfasts, lunches and snacks even though it canceled the majority of summer school offerings for a third year because of budget shortfalls.
In July 2010, more than a million subsidized meals were served at 260 L.A. Unified schools, four times as many as the previous year when the program was available at only 95 schools, according to Laura Benavidez, deputy director of food services. This summer, free meals will be offered at 300 schools that offer learning or enrichment programs.
Lidia Albisures, a 43-year-old single mother with two children at Union Avenue Elementary and two at Belmont High, said she relies on free school lunches to help keep her family healthy. Until two weeks ago, she was earning about $100 a week as a nanny. But the family she worked for moved out of the area.
She receives food stamps but starts running out of food about halfway through the month. “It’s very difficult for me” to put food on the table, Albisures said.
The Los Angeles city and county parks and recreation departments, the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank and other groups will also be offering free meals and snacks to children ages 1 to 18 at sites throughout the county. To find a location, parents can call the county’s information hotline, 211.
Such efforts to feed children in schools and community centers appear to be making a difference, said Matthew Sharp, a senior advocate with California Food Policy Advocates. Although the number of Los Angeles County children receiving lunches from federal summer meal programs declined 6% from July 2009 to July 2010, that was a smaller drop than in some other nearby counties. Participation fell 30% in Riverside, 26% in San Bernardino, 23% in San Diego and 7% in Orange counties.
]]>
June 15, 2011, WebMD, Denise Mann
A child’s risk for becoming overweight or obese does not seem to increase when fast food establishments and stores are located near school grounds, a new study finds.
“Unhealthful food choices are ubiquitous and consequently stores selling these food items near schools have no significant effect on student obesity,” researchers led by David E. Harris, PhD, of the University of Southern Maine in Portland say in the July/August 2011 Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.
Researchers compared the weight and height of 552 students from 11 high schools in Maine to the proximity of food stores to their schools. They computed the driving distance to all food stores within 1.24 miles of the schools or to the closest store. Ten schools had one or more stores that sold soda, and eight schools had one or more fast food restaurant less than a mile from their grounds, the study showed.
Students gave self-reports of their height and weight. A quarter of the students were overweight or obese, 73% were normal weight, and just under 2% were underweight.
Half of all the students drank soda at least once a week, and more than 10% drank soda daily, the study showed. There were similar patterns seen for sports drinks. Nearly two-thirds had eaten at a burger-and-fries restaurant in the past month, and more than half had visited a pizza parlor.
The most popular places students got soda were convenience stores (51%), home (43%), fast food restaurants (41%), and grocery stores (37.5%). Students reported getting sports drinks from convenience stores (45%), school vending machines (41%), home (29%), and grocery stores (26%).
FIT for Teens: Delicious, Filling Foods That Won’t Pack on the Pounds
As Maine Goes?
The proximity to fast food establishments did not increase risk for obesity among these students, but other studies in different populations have shown such a correlation. The reason for the discrepancy between studies may be related to the fact that Maine is largely made up of suburban or rural communities. There may be a greater concentration of fast food restaurants closer to schools in urban environments.
This study “provides more evidence that higher calorie/higher fat and added-sugar food choices remain a part of teens’ eating patterns and [that] accessibility is not an issue for teens, so whether a quick-serve restaurant is close to schools or not doesn’t automatically change their behavior pattern,” says Connie Diekman, RD, the director of university nutrition at Washington University in St Louis.
“Changing the eating behaviors of teens requires more than simply controlling what is sold,” she says via email. “Teens are able to make choices and they need education and motivation to limit their intake of calorie-dense foods.”
Nutrition Education Begins at Home
Laura Jeffers, RD, of the Digestive Disease Institute of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, agrees.
Nutrition education starts at home and follows children through school, she says.
“A lot of the things that they are consuming, such as burgers and fries, doesn’t happen right after school anyway, and can be on the weekend,” she says. “Kids can get healthy or unhealthy food everywhere.
“The parents have to be on board too because the majority of what kids eat is at home,” she says.
Read more at Fast Food Restaurants Near Schools Don’t Raise Obesity Risk.
]]>
Reuters, Julie Steenhuysen, November 1, 2010
Despite efforts to limit their availability, public elementary school students in the United States have more outlets to buy unhealthy beverages at school, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
Over a three-year period ending in 2009, more students could buy sweetened beverages like sodas, higher-fat milk and sports beverages from vending machines and school stores, they said. Such drinks are a major source of calories, and removing them from schools could help curb the nation’s obesity epidemic.
“Elementary school students are still surrounded by a variety of unhealthy beverages while at school,” said Lindsey Turner of the University of Illinois at Chicago, whose study appears in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
“Sugar-sweetened sodas have been linked to childhood obesity. Because kids spend so much time in school, getting those beverages out of school should be a public health priority in our opinion,” Turner said in a telephone interview.
Although U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines say schools should not provide sweetened beverages in government supported cafeteria meals, students can buy these items in vending machines or school stores — known as competitive venues because they compete with the government meals.
Turner and colleague Frank Chaloupka mailed surveys to U.S. elementary school administrators about the availability of high-calorie beverages for sale in three successive school years through 2008-2009.
They looked beyond the cafeteria to other places that might be supplying children with sugared beverages and they looked at the different types of milk for sale: low-fat, whole and flavored.
VENDING MACHINES, SCHOOL STORES
During the three years of the study, they said the number of vending machines remained stable, but access to stores or snack bars or a la carte cafeteria lines rose significantly.
By 2009, 61 percent of students could buy high-calorie drinks from vending machines or school stores compared with 49 percent just two years prior.
“What we found was over time there was not a substantial decrease in sugary beverages, which is what we would have hoped to see,” Turner said.
“We also found that school stores become more common, as did a la carte lines in lunch rooms.”
Overall, she said 45 percent of public elementary school students could purchase some sort of beverage outside of the government meals program that did not meet national recommendations.
That figure rose to 58 percent of students in private elementary schools, Turner said.
Too much sugar not only makes people fatter, but is also a key culprit in diabetes, heart disease and stroke, according to the American Heart Association.
via Sweet drinks widely available in schools: study | Reuters.
]]>
San Fransisco Chronicle, Stacy Finz, September 23, 2010
Science classes in Berkeley are taught weekly in campus gardens. English, history and math courses are held regularly in the kitchen. The cafeterias have been rid of processed food, and everything is made from scratch.
The experiment started five years ago to teach a generation reared on junk food about good nutrition, where their food comes from and the environment.
The naysayers laughed, “Only in Berkeley.” Even the less skeptical wondered if kids could be weaned off Pop-Tarts with the lure of Brussels sprouts.
Now, the results are in. According to a new study, Berkeley Unified School District’s School Lunch Initiative works.
A three-year UC Berkeley study shows that students fed a steady curriculum of gardening, cooking and nutrition have significantly better eating habits than children who don’t get the same instruction.
Integrated approach
The report, scheduled to be released next week by the university’s Dr. Robert C. and Veronica Atkins Center for Weight and Health, is one of the first to look at how an integrated approach to food education at the elementary-school level can contribute to children’s health and welfare. The center’s findings could prove timely as Congress prepares to vote, possibly as early as this week, on child nutrition legislation.
“Ideally, this could be used to influence public policy,” said Neil Smith, Berkeley’s assistant superintendent.
Like Smith, Ann Cooper, a chef who was hired to renovate the district’s lunch program and has since left to start a similar program in Boulder, Colo., hopes the report gives others a push.
“This is the first evaluation that really shows that after two to three years, you can have a profound impact on the well-being of children,” she said.
In 2006, researchers from the Atkins Center began following the eating patterns of 238 Berkeley fourth- and fifth-graders. They wanted to know if the comprehensive nutrition program funded by the Chez Panisse Foundation and the Center for Ecoliteracy, two local nonprofits, was making a difference in kids’ attitudes about food.
They compared the students enrolled in Berkeley schools with highly developed food programs – cooking and garden classes, improved cafeteria lunches and nicer dining facilities – with other students in the district’s schools that don’t have such an extensive curriculum.
What they found was that the students in the more advanced programs increased their fruit and vegetable consumption by 1.5 servings a day, while the other students decreased their intake by nearly a quarter serving. The first group also scored higher on nutrition tests and actually requested “more leafy greens, such as chard, spinach and kale, with their meals,” said Suzanne Rauzon, the study’s research project director. Typically, kids that age couldn’t even identify those vegetables, let alone list them among their favorites, she said.
By the time the students got to middle school, they were more positive about eating in the cafeteria, seemed to have a preference for produce in season and were conscious that their eating choices could help or hurt the environment, according to the report.
Sixty percent of the parents of students enrolled in the stronger food curriculum said school changed their child’s knowledge about healthful food choices, compared to 36 percent in the other program. Thirty-five percent as opposed to 16 percent said school improved their child’s eating habits.
“It just validates everything we’ve known to be true,” said Alice Waters, who started the Chez Panisse Foundation, which commissioned the study. The Bay Area restaurateur said, although she was not surprised by the findings, “Some people need facts and numbers.”
Zenobia Barlow, co-founder and executive director of the Center for Ecoliteracy, said the study proves that it’s not enough just to serve healthful food in the school cafeteria. Teaching good nutrition has to be woven into the curriculum.
“Kids at the sixth-grade level have no idea what a calorie is,” she said. “But when they’re told they’ll have to run six laps to work off a bag of Doritos, it starts to change behaviors.”
Impact on obesity
And changing eating behaviors in this country has become imperative, experts say. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicts that because of the country’s obesity problem, 1 out of 3 children will have diabetes at some point in life. Only 1 to 2 percent of children in the United States meet the government’s recommended dietary guidelines.
Many school nutrition advocates are hoping that UC Berkeley’s report is instrumental in helping to pass the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, legislation that would include a 6-cent increase in the federal reimbursement rate for school lunches, mandatory funding for Farm to School programs and national nutrition standards for food sold on campus.
“It’s important that we demonstrate around the country how powerful these ideas are,” said Waters. “We put physical education into the core curriculum under the Kennedy administration. Now more than ever before, we have to worry about our children’s welfare.”
]]>
Los Angeles Times, Karen Kaplan, September 2, 2010
For many students, “back to school” means back to a vending machine diet. As you might guess, this isn’t necessarily a good thing for student health.
Vending machines are found in 16% of U.S. elementary schools, 52% of middle schools and 88% of high schools. About 22% of students in grades 1 through 12 buy food in vending machines each day – and those purchases added an average of 253 calories to their diets, according to a new study in the September issue of the Journal of School Health.
Just to be clear, those were not 253 calories’ worth of tofu, yogurt or carrot sticks. The most popular vending machine items included soft drinks, candy, chips, crackers, cookies, cakes and ice cream. On the plus side, kids also bought low-fat milk, fruit juice and even fruit, the study found.
Get breaking news alerts delivered to your mobile phone. Text BREAKING to 52669.
But the net effect on kids’ diets was not good. Those who bought from vending machines ate an average of 156 grams of sugar per day, compared with 146 grams for those who abstained. They also consumed less dietary fiber, iron and B vitamins like thiamine, riboflavin, niacin and folate.
One silver lining: Vending machine customers ate 4% less sodium than other students – an average of 3,287 milligrams per day compared with 3,436 mg for those who didn’t buy from vending machines. That’s probably because the extra snacks made kids too full to eat as much at mealtime, when dishes are especially salty. In any event, kids should eat no more than 1,200 to 1,500 mg of sodium each day, according to the Mayo Clinic. (Even for adults, the government recommends a daily limit of 2,300 mg.)
Overall, vending machines in school appear to be taking a toll on public health. The researchers – from the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Food & Nutrition Database Research Inc. of Okemos, Mich. – calculated that all that snacking adds up to about 14 extra pounds per child per school year.
“For some students this might be a serious contributor to weight issues,” they wrote. Other public health problems include Type 2 diabetes and cavities.
The study was based on data collected from 2,309 children nationwide for the third School Nutrition Dietary Assessment Study, which was conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service.
via Another study highlights the insanity of selling junk food in school vending machines – latimes.com.
]]>
The Huffington Post, Michelle Locke, July 15, 2010
It’s not hard to figure out that stocking school vending machines with sugary sodas and salty, fatty snacks is a bad idea. Replacing those culinary culprits with something more nutritious is tougher.
But a growing number of school districts around the country are trying anyway.
“I can’t say enough for what it does for the kids to have the junk out of the machines,” says Patricia Gray, who as former principal of San Francisco’s Balboa High School oversaw a switch to healthier snacks.
“It was not an easy task,” says Gray, now an assistant superintendent with the district, “it was a re-education process.”
Efforts to get empty calories out of students’ hands are being made in almost every state, according to the Centers for Disease Control. A 2008 School Health Profiles Survey found that fewer secondary schools were selling less nutritious snacks compared with two years before.
Among the findings: Across 34 states, the median percent of secondary schools that ditched non-nutritious snacks increased from 46 percent in 2006 to 64 percent in 2008.
Still, the report found more progress needs to be made.
How big a deal is what kids eat at school?
According to the Institute of Medicine and the National Center for Health Statistics, the average young person gets more than 10 percent of his or her calories from saturated fat, takes in less than two-thirds the recommended intake of calcium and more than double the recommended amount of sodium. And for boys and girls ages 9 to 13, 21 percent get more than one-fourth of their energy intake from added sugars.
Food in the lunch and breakfast programs must meet nutritional standards to qualify for federal reimbursement, but food sold in other school venues, including vending machines, aren’t subject to those requirements.
Some states have passed their own laws regulating vending machines, including California, which forbids some non-nutritious snacks. In San Francisco, the school board has a stricter policy, passing a wellness policy implemented in the 2003-04 year that banned sodas (this is now part of the state standard, too) and nixed snacks like baked potato chips.
“It may be less bad for you, but that doesn’t mean that it’s good for you,” says Dana Woldow, a leader in the push for better snacks and co-chair of the district’s Student Nutrition and Physical Activity Committee.
Things aren’t perfect now, but they’re “a million times better,” than the past when sodas, candy and fried chips were the rule, Woldow said.
Starting this fall, one machine is being piloted in a San Francisco high school that will offer full, reimbursable, meals – fruit, vegetable, milk, sandwich. The “smart” machine will tally up when a student has selected enough items to qualify as reimbursable.
Drinks allowed in San Francisco school vending machines include water, juice, milk and juice/water blends with no added sweeteners, caffeine or herbal supplements. Snacks include yogurt bars, tuna salad and crackers, fruit bars and sunflower seeds.
Healthier snack machines are showing up all over. Jolly Backer, CEO of San Diego-based Fresh Healthy Vending, says the company has machines in 1,700 locations, including schools, across the United States. Offerings include items such as yogurts and fresh fruit. “All the top-selling drinks and snacks that you’d find in a Whole Foods Market you’ll find in our machines,” says Backer.
Some, like food activist Marion Nestle, say the idea of healthier vending machines is flawed.
“It depends how you define healthy,” she said. “If you define healthy as slightly better for you than junk food, they’re doing a really good job.”
She advocates taking out vending machines and focusing on improving school lunch options.
But Woldow notes that the school day is long with extracurricular activities that can go on for hours after the cafeteria closes, which means students might dash out to corner stores for high-fat, high-sugar snacks. “Isn’t it better to offer them healthy choices which are also convenient?” she says.
For those working to boost the nutrient value of vending machines, one issue is that machines are often under independent contract, perhaps to the PE department or the English department, making it hard to centralize control.
Bringing about change requires a comprehensive approach, says Gray. In addition to working on vending machine content she stopped the sale of candy for fundraisers, a very unpopular decision for a while, and curtailed bringing in junk food from home. “If you don’t have a principal that’s totally committed to (healthier snacks), it won’t work.”
And be patient, she says. Passing out fresh fruit started out as a novelty and turned into a treat. “They will eat it if it’s available and you don’t have the bad stuff. Kids get hungry. They’re going to eat one way or the other.”
]]>A National Institutes of Health sponsored school-based, healthy living intervention did not significantly reduce obesity in high risk middle-school children, researchers have found.
But while the HEALTHY Study missed its primary endpoint of reducing combined rates of overweight and obesity compared with control schools, the intervention significantly reduced other measures of adiposity compared with controls, according to Gary D. Foster, PhD, of Temple University, and colleagues.
They reported their findings online in the New England Journal of Medicine and at a session during the American Diabetes Association meeting here.
“Surprisingly, to us at least, that means control schools in which no intervention happened reduced their rates of combined overweight and obesity,” Foster said during a press briefing. “It did, however, produce a nearly significant reduction — about 2% — in rates of obesity, and indeed a significant reduction in BMI z-score, waist circumference, and insulin resistance.”
Data indicate that 16% of children ages 6 to 19 are overweight and 19% are obese, with higher rates in minority groups. With that excess weight comes the risk of type 2 diabetes.
Since schools have so much contact time with children, they provide a suitable environment for interventions, researchers say.
For that reason, a school-based program seemed the intuitive solution for combating childhood obesity and its concurrent health risks.
The HEALTHY Study was conducted in 42 schools totaling 4,603 students. For schools to be eligible, at least 50% of children had to be black or Hispanic, or at least 50% had to be eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Such children are considered high risk for obesity and type 2 diabetes.
The intervention consisted of four components: nutrition, physical activity, behavioral knowledge, and communications. Nutrition targeted school food quality, while time devoted to physical education was increased.
The education component consisted of teaching self-awareness and behavioral skills such as goal-setting, while communications such as newsletters attempted to hold kids’ interest in the program. All the children knew they were participating in the HEALTHY Study.
Their mean age was about 11 years, and 54.2% were Hispanic and 18% were black. Just over half of the students were girls.
At the beginning of sixth grade and at the end of 8th grade, students had measurements of body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, and fasting glucose and insulin levels.
The primary outcome was a decrease in the combined prevalence of overweight and obesity.
By the end of the study, the researchers found no significant difference in this primary outcome between intervention schools and control schools.
Both groups reduced the prevalence of overweight and obesity –- by 4.5% in the intervention group and 4% in the intervention group.
“This signals potentially good news,” Foster said. “Rates of obesity among high-risk children … appear to be declining.”
Cynthia Ogden, PhD, of the CDC, said during the briefing that there has been a leveling off of childhood obesity within the last few years, after a rapid increase in the early 1990s, which may signal that public health messages about the importance of health have been working.
In the study, there was, however, a nearly significant reduction in the prevalence of obesity in the intervention schools. These children had 19% lower risk of being obese at the end of the study than did those in the control group (95% CI 0.66 to 1.00,P=0.05). “It would have required a P value of less than 0.05 to reach significance,” Foster said.
Also, those in the intervention had significantly greater reductions in secondary outcomes of BMI z-scores and percentage of students with waist circumference at or above 90th percentile (P=0.04).
There was no difference in mean plasma glucose levels or in the percentage of students who had glucose levels of 100 mg/dL or higher by the end of the study.
Also, both groups had increases in fasting insulin levels between the beginning of 6th grade and the end of 8th grade.
But those in the intervention had significantly lower mean insulin than did students in the control schools (P=0.04).
Philip S. Zeitler, MD, PhD, of the University of Colorado in Denver, who was not involved in the study, said during the press briefing that the changes in measures of adiposity signal an “important suggestion that we’ve decreased diabetes risk at a time when that risk is rising steeply.”
He added that the intervention “is likely to have had substantial effects on the [obese] children who are at high diabetes risk.”
]]>
The Guardian, Jo Tuckman, May 27, 2010
The Mexican government is to ban junk food and fry-ups in primary and secondary schools in an effort to combat one of the worst obesity problems in the world.
From the beginning of the next school year, school shops will no longer be allowed to stock fizzy drinks, sugar-stuffed fruit juices, processed snacks, or more local delights such as chilli soaked sweets. Nor will school kitchens offer traditional standards such as fried tacos.
“The kids are going to complain, of course,” the education minister Alonso Lujambio told W Radio today. “We are going to start a profound cultural change.”
The ban does not affect junk food vendors who congregate at school gates at home time, although Lujambio promised future efforts to encourage them to sell healthier products.
President Felipe Calderon launched an anti-obesity campaign in January. Public officials refer to Mexican children as the fattest in the world. While the comparative figures are questionable, one study concluded that 26% between the ages of five and 11 were overweight. The proportion of overweight adults is approaching that in the US.
The health minister Jose Angel Cordoba said consumption of fruits and vegetables in the last 15 years had fallen by 40% while consumption of sweetened drinks rose by 50% .
Dependence on junk foods is compounded by falling rates of exercise caused, in part, by chaotic urbanisation that eats up open spaces.Many Mexicans also have a genetic propensity to store fat, as well as to develop diabetes.
The stampede towards unhealthy eating is also visible in rural areas where a recent study in isolated indigenous villages found many cases of mothers who immediately bought their children junk food treats after picking up government anti-poverty hand outs.
The school ban comes after years of resistance from corporations such as Coca Cola and Pepsi. Lujambio praised their new “co-operative spirit” with reference to their diversification into healthier products, including bottled water which is hugely profitable in a country where few trust tap water. “Our hope is that children start demanding other kinds of products,” he said.
via Mexico bans junk foods in schools | World news | The Guardian.
]]>
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of children who are overweight has more than doubled in the last 20 years. Among teenagers it is even worse with the number increasing more than three times in the same period. This had led to over 10 million children falling into the overweight or obese category. Being obese or overweight at such a young age can lead to serious health problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and even cancer.
With a prediction of one in three children falling into this category in the near future, the problem is more serious than ever. Even if you are not obese, chances are many of your friends are. So how best to help them or yourself? One good idea is to tackle the problem when you are all together at school. While teachers and administrators may brush aside the worries of one child, a group of children, especially those united with their parents, can make a huge difference. Whether working as a team or solo, the below ten ways to fight obesity in your school have loads of useful help to improve diet, exercise, and more.
.jpg)
1. It Starts at Home : You are only in school about 30 hours a week and eat only five meals a week there. In reality, diet, activity, and lifestyle are all begun at home usually before a child even enters school. Also what is done for breakfast, dinner, weekends, and vacations are also taking place at home. In this article, two obese children discuss what the battle in daily life is like. If you are an obese or overweight child, discuss with your parents what can be done to address the issue at home before tackling the school.
2. Get Your Parents Involved : Because sometimes grown-ups don’t listen to kids, get your parents involved in the fight against obesity. One of the best ways to do this is to have them attend a PTA (Parent Teacher Association) meeting in your school. Have them visit this site of the national board to find your local one. There are also other resources for joining and running a PTA.
3. Let’s Move : The First Lady established this campaign to address the weight issues effecting today’s children. Visit the site to get tips for getting parents the support they need, providing healthier food in schools, getting kids active, and making healthy food affordable and available. Learn more about the benefits of joining by visiting the site.
4. Look Before You Leap : If weary about the above and letting the government into your pantry, check out this article from Grist. It addresses many of the concerns about the Let’s Move program. Both the pros and cons of it are discussed so parents, children, and educators can make informed decisions.
5. Get Out and Play : Nothing burns calories, fat, carbs, and sugar like good old-fashioned physical activity. Unlike the olden days, students can now use the internet for help. This program, entitled Fuel Up To Play 60, is a competition for schools to win prizes just for eating right and getting active. Sponsored by the NFL, the site has tons of tips on how to fight obesity in your school. Even if you don’t live within the parameters, there are still resources.
6. Label Away : The vending machines offer tons of tasty treats, yet some kids may not know which the best and worst choices are. Something as simple as a snack bar or soda can actually contain hundreds of calories, loads of fat, and be drenched in sugar, ruining any physical activity you had that day. Visit this link to see which snacks are best in the candy bar, chips, cookies, and other areas from Eat This, Not That. Ask your school’s permission to mark the vending machines. Then visit to get a guide on how you can print labels to put a “check” or an “X” next to the good and bad choices.
7. Sports Isn’t For Everyone : If you have no desire to join the football team, don’t worry. There are still options for all sorts of students who aren’t athletic. Students can take dance, gardening, or other lower impact sports to get in the recommended daily activity. This article from “The New York Times” has more on the Lifelong Fitness classes that have been popping up in schools. Some schools even offer yoga or Pilates for an alternative way to get fit.
8. But I Like Sports! : If you want to burn the most amount of calories in the least amount of time, sports may be the way to go. The experts at HowStuffWorks have gathered the top twelve calorie-burning entries and share more about each. The top ones include running, climbing, and swimming which can burn up to 450 calories in just 30 minutes.
9. BYOL : If your school still isn’t getting anything done to fight obesity, take matters into your own hands. You are by no means forced to eat or drink anything the school offers. Show this article from WebMD to your parents to get 15 brown bag lunch ideas chock full of tasty and healthy options. Be sure bring a little extra for your friends who think they don’t like pitas or sushi. You can also find ideas for low fat lunches and . You can also consider starting healthy potluck lunches with your buddies and their parents where each parent makes a healthy lunch one day a week for the whole group.
10. Consider Report Cards : In 2004, a New Jersey middle school had a high amount of overweight and obese students. So they started a BMI report card. Students received these cards much like they would for grades to pass along to their parents. When faced with the truth about their child’s condition, many parents took steps on their behalf. While each state is different on regulations, if students and parents have questions on this matter, they should get involved.
Although school is a place for learning, there are also tons of opportunities to fight obesity through both diet and movement. Whether taking the stairs, skipping the soda, or just going for a few laps around the school in between classes, students can find loads to do on their own in addition to implementing the above 10 big ways to fight obesity in your school.
Because obesity doesn’t disappear overnight, be sure to hang in there, don’t beat yourself up for every stumble, and get as many people involved in the fight as possible. For more tips on how to battle obesity, visit Kids Health to get tips on staying healthy just for you, along with stuff for your parents.
Via Online Degree 10 Big Ways to Fight Obesity in Your School .
]]>Tara Parker-Pope, January 25, 2010, The New York Times
Can something as simple as the timing of recess make a difference in a child’s health and behavior?
Some experts think it can, and now some schools are rescheduling recess — sending students out to play before they sit down for lunch. The switch appears to have led to some surprising changes in both cafeteria and classroom.
Schools that have tried it report that when children play before lunch, there is less food waste and higher consumption of milk, fruit and vegetables. And some teachers say there are fewer behavior problems.
“Kids are calmer after they’ve had recess first,” said Janet Sinkewicz, principal of Sharon Elementary School in Robbinsville, N.J., which made the change last fall. “They feel like they have more time to eat and they don’t have to rush.”
One recent weekday at Sharon, I watched as gaggles of second graders chased one another around the playground and climbed on monkey bars. When the whistle blew, the bustling playground emptied almost instantly, and the children lined up to drop off their coats and mittens and file quietly into the cafeteria for lunch.
“All the wiggles are out,” Ms. Sinkewicz said.
One of the earliest schools to adopt the idea was North Ranch Elementary in Scottsdale, Ariz. About nine years ago, the school nurse suggested the change, and the school conducted a pilot study, tracking food waste and visits to the nurse along with anecdotal reports on student behavior.
By the end of the year, nurse visits had dropped 40 percent, with fewer headaches and stomachaches. One child told school workers that he was happy he didn’t throw up anymore at recess.
Other children had been rushing through lunch to get to the playground sooner, leaving much uneaten. After the switch, food waste declined and children were less likely to become hungry or feel sick later in the day. And to the surprise of school officials, moving recess before lunch ended up adding about 15 minutes of classroom instruction.
In the Arizona heat, “kids needed a cool-down period before they could start academic work,” said the principal, Sarah Hartley.
“We saved 15 minutes every day,” Dr. Hartley continued, “because kids could play, then go into the cafeteria and eat and cool down, and come back to the classroom and start academic work immediately.”
Since that pilot program, 18 of the district’s 31 schools have adopted “recess before lunch.”
The switch did pose some challenges. Because children were coming straight from the playground, the school had to install hand sanitizers in the lunchroom. And until the lunch system was computerized, the school had to distribute children’s lunch cards as they returned from recess.
In Montana, state school officials were looking for ways to improve children’s eating habits and physical activity, and conducted a four-school pilot study of “recess before lunch” in 2002. According to a report from the Montana Team Nutrition program, children who played before lunch wasted less food, drank more milk and asked for more water. And as in Arizona, students were calmer when they returned to classrooms, resulting in about 10 minutes of extra teaching time.
One challenge of the program was teaching children to eat slower. In the past, children often finished lunch in five minutes so they could get to recess. With the scheduling change, cafeteria workers had to encourage them to slow down, chew their food and use all the available time to finish their lunch.
Today, about one-third of Montana schools have adopted “recess before lunch,” and state officials say more schools are being encouraged. “The pilot projects that are going on have been demonstrating that students are wasting less food, they have a more relaxed eating environment and improved behavior because they’re not rushing to get outside,” said Denise Juneau, superintendent of the Office of Public Instruction. “It’s something our office will promote to schools across the state as a best practice.”
Children’s health experts note that such a switch might not work in many urban school districts, where lower-income children may start the day hungry.
“It’s a great idea, but first we’ve got to give them a decent breakfast,” said Dr. David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children’s Hospital Boston. “A lot of kids skip breakfast and arrive at lunch ravenous.”
And for a seemingly simple scheduling change, it can create some daunting logistical problems. Children often have to return to hallways and classrooms after recess for bathroom breaks and hand washing and to pick up lunch bags. The North Ranch Elementary School regularly fields calls from schools in colder climates with questions on how to deal with coats, hats, galoshes and mittens. “In Arizona, we don’t have to deal with that,” said Dr. Hartley, the principal.
Many school districts say such problems make them reluctant to switch. A 2006 study in The Journal of Childhood Nutrition & Management reported that fewer than 5 percent of the nation’s elementary schools were scheduling recess before lunch.
But at the Sharon Elementary School, the principal, Ms. Sinkewicz, says the challenges have been worth it. In the past, children took coats, hats and mittens with them to the lunchroom, then headed outside. Now they have time to return coats to lockers so they don’t have to carry them to the lunchroom.
“For some reason, kids aren’t losing things outside,” Ms. Sinkewicz said. “The lost-and-found mound has gone down.”
Play, Then Eat: Shift May Bring Gains at School – Well Blog – NYTimes.com.
]]>