Today's students have a lower life expectancy than their parents. That is an alarming statistic. To know that my daughter should not live as long as I will is disturbing at best. Especially because we are in a fries and mac n'cheese phase. Full disclosure: she will only eat orange macaroni and cheese, she won't eat the white organic stuff... I preferred the grape, strawberry, and yogurt phase much better and last summer there was a two week period where she only ate blueberries, talk about interesting diaper contents. I try to set a good example; my husband and I both run, we go for bike rides after dinner-but we also have couch potato tendencies, boy do I love the bachlorette, but I digress.
At school, I avoid the cafeteria at all costs. I've only eaten there twice in four years. This year, we did however, have to patrol the cafeteria amid food fight rumors, honestly, serving mashed potatoes and hard boiled eggs, you'd think that they wanted a fight! I work in a rural, poor school district. The only food that some of our students eat is at school (however, they can afford Monster drinks, but that is a whole 'nother post). Most students eat pizza or buy cookies and chips a la carte. However, even the main meals aren't nutritious, I really don't even want to know what a falcon burger is anyway. We also regularly serve double cheeseburgers, chicken pieces. I know that there are districts around the country who are rethinking their budgets and the health of their students and are reworking their whole food service philosophy. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/magazine/20lunches.html In my humble opinion we must do a better job educating our students about proper nutrition, portion sizes, how to count points :) etc...Not to mention give them free samples of new foods as motioned in the article.
Other schools are implementing better gym programs, as well as after school fitness activities:http://www.girlsontherun.org/
Honestly, if every kid walked 1/2 hour to school and ate a nutritious breakfast and lunch, our jobs would be a tiny bit easier.
Excuse me please, I have to go make some Sponge Bob Mac n'cheese and microwave some fries.
I used to be a GOTR coach. It's an awesome program. I like how they take the long-term view of developing a student's desire to exercise.
ReplyDeleteI presented at a conference this year on the topic of preventing childhood obesity in schools. If you like, I could email you my power point. You could use it to start recruiting for a "health movement" in your school. ;)
Andrea,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I think that poor nutrition is why we see as many problems in schools, as we do. My district would not be considered "poor", but we still have a large number of students on free/reduced lunches.
I actually teach a course--Foods & Nutrition to ninth graders--covering the topics you want to see addressed (making healthy food choices, portion control, weight management, eating disorders, etc.). You would think that a school would be glad to have this kind of program, right? I'm not very convinced that my district find my class as "important"...well, definitely not as important as getting those "CORE" classes in. (You can check out my blog about electives vs. cores if you're interested).
As a coach, I also feel like the reason we are seeing a huge rise in the number of sport injuries in high schoolers is due to poor nutrition. What else could it be really? Besides maybe playing TOO much, TOO often (some kids have NO spare time anymore, because their parents let them play everything they want to).
If Elizabeth sends you that powerpoint, I would love a copy as well. Thanks!
This is a really interesting post. The effects of culture, marketing, peer preferences are so strong, aren't they? How does a parent, or a school, counteract these to create a healthier generation? wish I could make a helpful suggestion!
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