Nutrition
and food policy in the United States are hot-button topics in the political arena. Getting the right combination of policies, politicians, food services corporations, and regulations to converge
and produce meaningful results is a seemingly Herculean task. Obesity is an overwhelming epidemic that is affecting 69.2% of Americans (Shields). The need to
resolve the nutrition crisis is especially urgent when we consider that the
negative health outcomes relating to food and nutrition are plaguing the youngest generation of Americans at
such unprecedented rates.
In public schools the kinds
of foods available to children and teens in large part have become
increasingly less nutritious and have had toxic consequences physically,
academically, and psychologically. According to the CDC
the rate of childhood obesity has almost tripled since 1980, with one out of
six children now clinically obese. The percentage of children aged 6–11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7% in 1980 to nearly 18% in 2010. Similarly, the percentage of adolescents aged 12–19 years who were obese increased from 5% to 18% over the same period (Ogden,Carroll. 2010). What is to be done to resolve this? What
kinds of foods should our schools serve at lunch time?Margo Wootan, Director of nutrition policy at the consumer advocacy group, The Center for Science in the Public Interest, stated in her interview on the Knife and Fork Show that school lunch standards reforms that went into effect at the beginning of 2012 have already begun to show improvement in the quality of foods available to students. However, she also acknowledges the food culture surrounding the marketing of unhealthy foods to children and the impact that it has on the choices they make. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 produced a set of nutrition standards for the kinds of foods marketed and sold in schools but outside of the cafeteria setting such as in vending machines, school stores etc. It’s too soon to know how effective the results of these rules for nutrition will be in combating childhood obesity because the law hasn’t been fully implemented yet. However, it’s a bolstering step in the right direction to improving the health of our students and their accessibility to healthier food choices.
Private
schools can also enroll in the National School Breakfast and National School Lunch Programs. To be
eligible to receive benefits through the program the school must operate
on a nonprofit basis (for-profit private schools are ineligible because
it is a federally funded program). Nearly 32 million children in 101,600
public, nonprofit private schools, and residential child care
facilities get their lunch through the NSLP in the U.S. This chart shows the previous food requirements compared to the newly advised ones. This chart demonstrates the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act
requirements mentioned earlier. This limits vending machine snacks
(also known, as “competitive snacks”) to 200 calories per item. Sodas
and sports drinks sold in high schools must now be 60 calories or less
in 12-ounce servings.
Focusing
locally on school based nutrition, the Portland area is home to 79 public schools. In a typical year, students are
scheduled for 175 days academic instruction and on each of these days
food services must be provided. On a
daily basis the Portland Public Schools (PPS) Nutrition Services Department's nutrition service team members are serving upwards of
11,000 school breakfasts, 21,000 school lunches to students. PPS lunches
meet the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act certification standards and reflect the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and myplate.gov
by featuring whole grains, unlimited fresh fruits and vegetables,
nonfat and 1% milk. Students serve themselves from a fruit and vegetable
bar that has two types of vegetables and two types of fruit and fresh
salad greens. While the only “fresh” item may be the salad greens, the
canned fruit and vegetable options are still a nutrition
resource for many of the children who consume these meals. These changes in food choice offerings in PPS cafeterias represent a move in the right direction to combat the rising obesity rates in youth.
Along
with the, National School Breakfast and National School Lunch Programs
students at 22 schools in the Portland area receive fresh fruit and
vegetable snacks delivered daily to their classrooms as part of the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program.
The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) is a United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA) funded program that allocates free
fresh fruits and vegetables to students in elementary and middle schools
where over 50% of students are eligible for the free or reduced-price
meal programs. The purpose of the program is to expand the variety and
consumption of fruits and vegetables that children eat and to positively
guide their life-long eating habits.
The 2008 Farm Bill expanded the FFVP program to all 50 states, providing funding to make fresh fruit and veggies available to children free of charge outside of the National School Breakfast & Lunch Programs. It allows participating schools to be creative in offering produce items to students during the school day. This program helps teach children the importance of including fresh fruits and veggies in their diets (Dupius, 2011). While Oregon may be taking a stand against childhood obesity, and working to create a healthier generation, there's still a long way to go to understanding how food and nutrition impact the obesity pandemic in the United States and globally.
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Contributors:
Joshua Clark
Hanna Emerson
Emily Kallander
Brittany Forest
How do school lunches compare globally? Click here to see the different foods served in schools around the world!
References:
photo credit: http://civileats.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/school-lunch.jpg
(Shields) Shields, M. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/
(Ogden,Carroll. 2010)
Ogden CL, Carroll MD. Prevalence of obesity and trends in body mass index among US children and adolescents, 1999-2010. Journal of the American Medical Association2012.
(Dupius,2011)
Dupius, H. (2011). School Breakfast program .
Retrieved from http://www.ode.state.or.us/
(Dupius,2011)
Dupius, H. (2011). Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Program.
Retrieved from http://www.ode.state.or.us/
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