cafeteria food paper

8/3/2019 Cafeteria Food Paper

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Rough Draft Healthy Food Choices in Schools: the Right (and Only) Solution?

We have all seen it before: it is lunchtime, and the guy (or girl) is standing in front of you

in line is waiting to pay fora handful of soft sugar cookies? This may seem like shame,

considering how much the United States Agricultural Department (USDA) does to ensure that

elementary, middle, and high schools are getting healthy meals. Ever since the inception of the

National School Lunch Program (NSLP), the USDA has set strict mandates governing the

nutritional value of lunch meals. Schools that serve these meals are reimbursed in return.

Unfortunately, the program does not stop them from selling snacks, desserts, and treats

alongside the regular meals. Deemed as la carte snacks, these oftentimes unhealthier

products are sold to students during lunchtime by many school districts nationwide. Policy

makers and health researchers, however, are now labeling them competitive foods because

their sales compete directly with the sale of the NSLP meals. And amongst the schoolchildren,

they usually out-compete the healthier fare.

Thus, with more children and young adults purchasing sugary, salty, and high-calorie

content snack food for lunch, health researchers and lawmakers now point to competitive foods

as one of the major factors in the rising obesity epidemic.

Connecticut has already taken action. Thanks to the states new Health Certification

Program (HFC), sugar cookies as school lunches may now be a thing of the past. This voluntary

program offers financial incentives to schools that comply with Connecticuts nutrition standards

for all foods sold outside of NSLPs reimbursable lunch meals.

The new program has met promising success. According to studies made by the Yale

Rudds Center for Food Policy and Obesity, the 74 participating school districts has sold

significantly less unhealthy competitive foods than the 77 non-participating districts. Popular


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foods like Lays Classic Potato Chips, candy bars, and even sugarless gum are off the shelf,

replaced by their healthier alternatives, Baked Lays Original Potato Crisps and Rice Krispies

Treats Minis. Though some may argue that the substitutes seem no more different from the

original products, they must still adhere strictly to the state nutrition standard: no more than 200

calories, 15 grams of sugar, and/or 480 milligrams of sodium per serving, among other

restrictions. Since the implementation of HFC, Researchers have also noted that participating

school districts are getting more NSLP participation, especially in the middle schools. Indeed,

without the typical lines cookies, candies, and frozen sugary treats, it may very well be that more

students are buying lunch meals. Such positive results and implications give Michael Long

M.P.H, the director of the study, reason to believe that Connecticut has become a national

leader in improving the nutrition quality of school food.

Yet Connecticut is not the only one involved with its school lunch policy. In California,

where obesity is not just a concern but a highly widespread issue, two bills exist to strictly

prohibit the sale of all foods and beverages that do not follow the state s nutritional criteria. One

study measured the effect of the bills, with some quantifiable success. Just four years after the

policies have been executed, less fifth-grade boys and seventh graders were becoming

overweight. The rate of increase in overweightprevalence, according to the researchers,

eventually decreased to zero.

In spite of the improvement, however, the report acknowledges that obesity is still a

highly predominant occurrence in California, and that the state needs to do more to combat it.

Which raises a bigger question: what shouldwe to improve the children and young adults

health?


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Effective education is one possibility, and does not always need to be in a health class.

The Choice, Control, and Change program has science teachers educating middle-school

students on the biological and psychological causes of obesity, even asking them to collect and

analyze data of their own physical and dietary habits. Classes also teach the students how to

establish and achieve personal health-related goals. According to one research study, 278

middle-school students participating in this curriculum changed their physical and eating

behaviors. Compared to past habits, these young teenagers consumed less unhealthy foods and

increased their daily exercise after going through the Choice, Control, and Change course.

With so many different approaches, why not combine them into one program? The

School Nutrition Policy Initiative implements programs like nutrition education,nutritional

policy,social marketing, and parent outreach in each participating school district. This

multicomponent project has, indeed, shown dramatic results. In one study, researchers studied

ten schools in the Mid-Atlantic region that either applied or did not apply the Initiative. After

two years, the five schools with the Initiative program had significantly less overweight school

children than the other five schools. Certainly, there is something to be said about using a more

holistic system to fight childhood obesity.

Though additional policies may sound more costly, they do not need to be. Glen Haven

Elementary School wins a national award by just implementing a few exercise routines in their

schoolday at no extra monetary cost. Right before the first class starts, teachers and students do

Jamming Two Minutes--standing up, stretching, and jogging in place to music blasted in the

PA. At another specific time of the day, the school goes outside to run, hop, and skip for twelve

minutes together. Staff members in one school of Richmond, UT make fitness goals and track their

progress with a pedometer. Researcher Joyce McDowell notes that the students there have become


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very involved with their teachers progress, encouraging them and asking routinely about their

improvements. Ultimately, these teachers became role models for their pupils, who now create

similar programs for themselves.

Reducing competitive food policies, then, is perhaps a good step in improving childrens

health, but it is by no means the only one. And while healthier lifestyles can come in the form of

financial incentives, junk food reduction, and more governmental policies, they are probably just

as (or more) effective when they come from a different attitude. As one coach says in the Glen

Haven Elementary Schools wellness program, were just having fun here tackling childhood

obesity.

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