My Turn: Alaska has an opportunity for health
Thank you Juneau Empire for your article on Oct. 13, about the Juneau school lunch program, which brought to light some very tough and troubling issues regarding the nutritional health of our community's teens.
Related Stories:
•
Lunch at JDHS: hip vs. healthy
•
Frito pie is part of a bigger picture
•
Unhealthy foods support healthy sports at JDHS
Changing the school menu alone will not solve the problems of childhood obesity and poor eating choices. It will take the entire community working together to help children create a healthy lifestyle.
A healthy school nutrition environment means changes in school menu choices, accommodating classroom schedules and accessing a variety of funding sources for targeted health related activities. A healthy school environment means the school does not try to make a profit selling students "sometimes foods" on a daily basis.
Children need to see adults model healthy eating and physical fitness behaviors. They need to live in homes, attend schools and grow in communities that provide consistent healthy lifestyle messages.
Studies show that school meals that follow the federal National School Lunch and Breakfast Program guidelines contribute to better nutrition and healthier eating behaviors in children. However, today's students have established taste preferences for foods high in fat, sweetened beverages and salty snacks.
Many school food service programs have become completely self-supporting and compete with other choices available to students by meeting the customer's demands. Vending machines, snack bars, school stores and a la carte items - like Frito Pie - undermine the healthy nutrition of our students. These choices also force children to choose between unhealthy foods and healthy school meal programs.
Creating more state and federal regulations governing school nutrition programs is not the answer. States that have passed legislation have not provided funding to monitor or enforce the requirements mandated by law. Since the state of Alaska does not offer school districts financial reimbursement for school nutrition programs, our schools would face no consequences for non-compliance.
Communities that have been successful in changing their school nutrition environment have done so by creating local policies governing the sale of all foods sold in their schools. Some of these policies teach children about the benefits of good nutrition and physical activity.
Studies show that a school breakfast program makes the biggest impact on children's health and readiness to learn. Such students have improved scores on standardized tests, better overall school attendance, fewer discipline problems and fewer visits to the nurse's office.
Alaska has a wonderful opportunity to be on the cutting edge of creating healthy school nutrition environments. The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, Child Nutrition Services has won a $200,000 Team Nutrition Training grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to work with school communities to form nutrition policies. Under this program, $10,000 grants will be awarded to school communities to create and implement school policies that cover the sale of all food sold in the school in addition to addressing nutrition education and physical fitness. Schools, health corporations and other non-profit agencies can apply for the grant dollars. We encourage Juneau to apply, too.
A toolkit that provides a template of steps to introduce and create effective school nutrition policies is available on the web at www.fns.usda.gov/tn/Healthy/index.htm. Each grantee will be trained using the toolkit and expert trainers will visit each community to provide on-site training to students, parents, teachers and school food service staff.
Childhood obesity is a national epidemic. The best solutions for this crisis will come from the community. Children can have healthy productive lives if we take the time and supply the effort to help them form healthy habits for life.
Kathleen Wayne is the program coordinator for Child Nutrition Services with the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development.