I wrote a letter about the poor state of the school nutrition program and sent it to many, from my son's school staff/teachers/administration on up to Mr and Mrs Obama and everyone in between. I just wanted to share it with everyone else too!
So here it is:
I am a concerned parent of a first grader. I am also a home physical therapist who treats mostly medically complicated patients in their declining years. More than half of the people I treat have three things in common: obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. They wonder why their bodies are failing them as I look past them into their kitchen. I see discarded fast food wrappers, bags of chips, mountains of soda and loads of other high fat, high sugar and high starch foods.
Then I sat with my son at lunchtime at his school. My son brings his lunch because he is extremely picky. But I was appalled at what the other students were eating. Most of his class had the school lunch that day. It was chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes with gravy, biscuits, gray looking green beans, iceberg lettuce, and fruit salad. The kids get to pick what they want out of the line and can add “a la carte” items. There is no incentive to pick the more nutritious items. The child across from my son chose the chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, biscuit, and then paid extra for a bag of potato chips. Most of the other children chose nearly the same. Only three children in his class chose the fruit or vegetable. When you follow the diabetic food exchange plan this meal would equal one protein and four carb/starches. The child was a little overweight but did not look obese. A few years of eating this same diet will cause this child to be obese. The choices of healthy food available were milk, iceberg lettuce (very little nutritional value), green beans (undoubtedly canned and overcooked causing little nutrition or taste to remain) and a small portion of fruit salad. My son's school participates in a “virtual cafeteria” website that uses the actual menu to teach children about nutrition. You get a green light for picking healthy foods and a yellow light for picking not healthy foods. I checked the menu for several weeks and there was not one entrée offered that met the requirements to get a green light. Only a few questionably healthy sides were offered and some days only one at each lunch.
We are setting up our children to be obese. It was reported last year that children born in 2000 have a 1 in 3 chance of becoming obese adults. They are doomed to be fat because we don't give them better choices and we don't help them make better choices. I know the children are taught about nutrition but then we leave the choice all up to them. If given the same buffet menu as the children that day, how many of you would have skipped the mashed potatoes and biscuit and chose the green beans, fruit salad and salad? We all know what we should eat and most choose to eat the junk anyway. We need to give our children tasty, healthy food, help them make the best choice and then give them incentive to eat it! But the current system expects a seven year old to make the right choices and take all the responsibility for those choices.
The National School Lunch Program was started in 1946 to feed low income children, keep them from going hungry, and prevent malnutrition. Malnutrition should no longer be the goal of this program! As I started to research the program I was again appalled to discover that the funding for the program is tied to surpluses in the commodities markets. The program is serving the huge commercial wheat, corn and soybean farms, instead of our children. We are doing a disservice to our children and their futures. The times have changed and we should change the structure of the program so that we can serve healthier food. How about subsidizing broccoli farms? Funding should be tied to healthier foods and supporting local markets instead of the large commercial mega farms. Food preparation should be brought back to the schools instead of a factory 1500 miles away making frozen, re-heatable meals that containing three times more ingredients than normal because they need so many preservatives to keep them safe to eat.
I realize this means the schools need more money to do it the right way. Schools will need to hire chefs, nutritionists, train other workers to cook and not just reheat and serve. They will need to buy new equipment to prepare the food. Educating students in nutrition should take a bigger role in the curriculum. Don't just teach a food pyramid that supports eating large amounts of grain and think it has been covered. Integrate cooking and nutrition into science classes, arts and crafts, social studies and where ever else it can be incorporated. Give the children individual and class rewards tied directly to eating healthier at lunch time. Kids are competitive and respond to those types of challenges. It should be interactive but currently the system is too passive. Past efforts to cut out vending machines with soda and candy bars do not go nearly far enough.
The Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004 will expire this September 2009. This legislation includes all the Federal child nutrition programs, including the School Breakfast and the National School Lunch Programs, the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). Please be a proactive voice in changing our school's nutritional standards. Please support legislative changes to overhaul our school lunch programs and provide funding to do so. Please support our children's future health and well being. Their lives depend on it!
