By: Jean Johnson for Reflux1The Bad News
Fries doused in sugary ketchup. Greasy burgers slathered with mayo. Triangles of white-dough cheese pizza and super-sized soda to wash the heavy works down. And then there’s dessert – and later, all those irresistible snacks from vending machines that have invaded schools across our land.
Clearly there’s been a takeover. No one complained much and the kids loved it – that is until the fallout started to plague them. Waistbands getting tight along with trouble taking part in sports or dancing. More trips to the doctor than a growing person normally has to endure.
The Statistics
Indeed, children plagued by the overweight and obesity epidemic are part of a generation that is experiencing a raft of new illnesses formerly not seen in youths. News broadcasts everywhere are alerting Americans that Type 2 diabetes striking the nation’s kids. Added to that, the Centers for Disease Control offers these statistics:
• obesity rates have tripled since the 1980s and are still accelerating,
• today’s children belong to the first generation ever that is expected to have a lower life expectancy than their parents, and
• youths are getting diseases that only two decades ago were only seen in adult populations.
The Diseases: Type 2 Diabetes, Heart Problems, Acid Reflux
Essentially kids that carry extra fat strain the body’s systems. The heart, the lungs and the stomach, to name a few, take on burdens they were never designed for.
| Take Action |
Find out if your child’s school lunch is up to par. Questions to ask: Who decides what’s for lunch in the school cafeteria?
Who determines school policies on vending machines, and snacks and sodas in the cafeteria or student store?
Who makes decisions about what foods can be sold as part of student activity fundraisers?
Does the school or school district post its lunch menus for the week, and do the menus provide nutrition facts?
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Consequently, according to Stephen Daniels, M.D., professor of pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, heavy children are predisposed to many diseases. While we hear a lot about Type 2 diabetes and future heart disease in this increasingly at risk group of children, Daniels points out that acid reflux or GERD is also thought to be exacerbated by the presence of large amounts of belly fat. The physician penned his thoughts in a Spring 2006 article in The Future of Children, a publication of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and the Brookings Institution. The Good News
To try and stem the epidemic related to SAD, the Standard American Diet run amuck, schools around the country are jockeying to distance their students from as many temptations as they can. Indeed, national policies aimed at school districts receiving federal money to subsidize school lunches and breakfasts are helping push the trend.
In the place of junk food and meals high in fat and low in fiber, children are increasingly being offered healthful foods prepared according to recipes that focus on elevating nature’s innate bounty and the goodness of fresh, unprocessed fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes.
Portland, Oregon that is fast gaining a national reputation for being a foodie town is clearly on the forefront, albeit only as of this year. Indeed, when elementary, middle and high school students walk through the doors this year they will have some reorientation to do. Gone will be those soda machines decorated in high color to steer even the best intended away from the drinking fountain. In place of the fizzy water as well as sugared sports drinks, students will find bottled water, fruit juices and milk.
The snack machines have had a similar makeover. New guidelines screen out old-school treats and invite children to nosh on nuts, pretzels and granola bars instead. And then there’s the cafeteria where there will be a district-wide effort to serve more local foods, cut down on the number of times per week fries and cookies are served and include items like tofu and humus on menus.
Added to this, at selected Portland schools that have their own gardens, there will be monthly lunches where students will get in on the cooking, fixing dishes out of whatever’s poking through the loam in any given season – hearty greens, beets and carrots in the winter; snow peas and strawberries in spring; the gamut during summer; and squash come autumn. There is even one school in an area of Portland dominated by residents from the crunchy-granola legacy of the sixties where cooking everything from scratch is going into its second year of testing.
Portland may be emerging out of the pack, but the city isn’t the only one – or even the first to think about helping children help themselves – to less fattening food. In Virginia, for example, the Fairfax county school system has been doing such exemplary work that The Washington Post reported on it and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine singled it out for an A.
“I think we should have an A because when it comes to nutrition and nutrition education, we’ve been a leader for years,” food and nutrition director for Fairfax, Penny McConnell told The Post. Under McConnell’s watch, the system has weeded out high-calorie, packaged snacks and offers students soy products, yogurt and vegetarian and vegan menus, along with lean meats and low-fat cheeses.
Lingering Questions
As a recent New York Times Magazine article that delved into the history of the current problem observed, school lunches are a function of a federal program passed in 1946 in response to high numbers of men too underweight for military service. Said President Harry Truman at the time, federal dollars would guarantee a hot meal for all students regardless of the ability to pay.
To the Truman legacy, President Lyndon Baines Johnson added that as part of his Great Society program, kids also needed a nourishing breakfast. Johnson funneled further federal monies to schools to cover the costs of hot meal #2 for families that were short on funds.
From these policies it was only a short step over to the U.S. Department of Agriculture where the government saw that by routing surplus commodities into the school system it could help farmers and children alike. The only problem, as the Times put it, was that “terms like farm-fresh and organic rarely apply.”
“At the same time, the School Lunch Act put schools in the restaurant business, requiring that their lunchrooms manage to at least break even, reimbursing them between 23 cents and $2.40 a meal. It is a system in which pennies are necessarily looked at as closely as sodium content, perhaps even more so.”
Wouldn’t you know? Nothing is ever simple.
Still, generally once people are educated and demand change, things begin to start shifting. We at Reflux1 can’t think of anything that is more of a wake-up call for the nation that legions of kids that are so heavy their future and present health are at risk.
With this daily reminder at cafeteria tables, in homes, and out on neighborhood streets across the land, surely Americans will increasingly make better decisions no matter the financial cost. And in the process kids will encounter the pleasure and taste of their own community’s distinctive regional cuisine – cuisine that never fails to materialize when those in the kitchen start working with fresh seasonal foods right outside their own door, or at least as close to home as possible.
