No Mr. Principal, Please Don’t Supersize Me! — John Bogosian
Constant Harvest • Volume 5 Number 1 • Planting 2006 Updated: 04/11/06
The percentage of overweight teenagers America more than tripled in the last two decades. According to the 2004 Report Competitive Foods and Beverages for Purchase in Secondary Schools, 16 percent of our teenagers are eligible for this corpulent federation.
East Hampton Middle Schoolers, though, are not so eager to conscribe. A school-sponsored screening of Morgan Spurlock’s documentary Supersize Me, worked to wake groups of students from their collective Mcstupor. Making the connections between the wadding foods presented in the film, and the daily offerings served in the school cafeteria, more and more students asked for bag lunches from home, staging a de facto boycott of the food service company. Financial pressures of the “boycott” caused Whitson’s Food Service to change their menus to include more nutritious foods, such as fresh fruit, whole wheat thin crust pizzas, and frozen fruit bars instead of ice cream.
At issue is what some call the “hidden curriculum” at schools across the country. If school administrators choose to offer sub-nutritional food at mealtimes, and allow vending machines on school grounds that sell candy and sugar-sweetened soft drinks, aren’t they in fact creating a daily lesson for the ultimate diet for success (or a lesson that diet doesn’t really matter)? With students who have breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria consuming nearly half their weekly meals at school, the nutrition environment there seems to be a primary key to improving dietary choices and reducing obesity among youths.
Legislatively, the school nutrition environment breaks down into two components: the USDA regulated school meals program and “competitive foods,” that is foods sold outside of the meal program. A federal appellate court ruled that the USDA had no authority to regulate competitive foods, but did hold that states may apply stricter regulations. Indeed, the state of New York prohibits the sale of candy and soda on school grounds from the beginning of the school day to the end of the last lunch period.
The remaining nutrition policy is decided by school administrators that much more often than not, take the lower road. A recent Government Accountability Office report found that nearly 9 out of 10 schools sold competitive foods in or near the cafeteria and during lunch times. Middle and high schools generated substantial revenues through competitive food sales; the nearly 30 percent of high schools generating the most revenue from these sales raised more than $125,000 per school.
East Hampton Middle School serves as a shining exception. Health teacher Ginny Reale and school nurse Barbara Tracey discovered that too many students were spending their lunch money at the “competitive” snack bar rather than on sanctioned school meals. The pair has worked to close the snack bar and at the same time vastly improved the nutritional quality of foods offered in the a la carte line. Through a $6000 donation (originally anonymous) from local citizen Doug Mercer, they purchased a refrigerator sufficient to hold salads and other fresh offerings.
The upgrade of the middle school lunch program along with the screening of Supersize Me at the school is part of an educational program sparked by Ginny and Barbara called Bonack on Board to Wellness. The program is made possible through a generous grant from the East Hampton Healthcare Foundation. “The goal of the program is to offer the children more plant-based and whole grain foods at school,” related Ginny. “The health benefits associated with eating more vegetables and fruits and less meat are indisputably clear; study after study has shown a positive link between eating a diet rich in plant-based foods and a reduced risk for chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, coronary disease and some types of cancer.”
“We’ve required our vending machine company to offer only healthy snacks,” Ginny explained. “They use the Choose Sensibly guidelines developed by the New York State School Food Service Association.” The guidelines suggest that snacks should not exceed seven grams of fat, two grams of saturated fat, 360 mg sodium, and 15 gm of sugar.
There are a few other positive examples on the East End. Mariah Bruehl, head of the Early Childhood Program at The Hampton Day School uses the Wholesome Foods Buying Club that I manage to source fruits and whole grain snacks for her students. And, most recently, a buying club member Suzanne Shaw helped the Stella Maris School in Sag Harbor and the YMCA in East Hampton transition to healthy snacks to help kids like her daughter Olivia make smart food choices while enrolled in these programs.
“I think people understand the nutrition-learning connection and want the best for our children,” Suzanne related. “It’s really a matter helping people understand that they have choices for offering better nutrition.” There are in fact more choices now in terms of affordable commercial products available. At Stella Maris they serve organic naturally low-fat chicken dogs from Applegate farms, high-protein whole grain pretzels from Newman’s, along with un-sweetened organic apple sauce from Santa Cruz.
If anything, these examples show if schools are not serving students nutritious foods that aid, not impede student learning, then they are choosing to do so. Parents, PTAs and students need to make their voices heard on this nutrition curriculum as they would any more traditionally academic curriculum designed and implemented at the school. For parents who would like to learn more about wellness for themselves and their families, Doug Mercer’s Nutrition for Wellness Foundation sponsors a free wellness circle every first and third Tuesday, from 7-8:30 pm at the East Hampton Middle School. For links and resources, please visit: www.bogofood.com/healthykids/.