Subtracting Junk Food from Schools

Six years ago, Wisconsin's Appleton Central Alternative High School invited Natural Ovens Bakery, a for-profit bakery with a non-profit foundation, to make its cafeteria food more healthy. After Natural Ovens changed the lunch menu from typical junk-food fare to whole grains, fewer animal products and more fresh fruits and vegetables, students' attention and behavior dramatically improved, as documented in the film Super Size Me.

Today, parents, administrators and community groups all over the country are working to improve the quality of school food in programs such as the USDA's Small Farms/School Meals Initiative, now in 32 states (see GG #102), which helps bring locally grown fresh produce into cafeterias. To bridge the gap until menus change, some parents are exploring alternatives such as Kid Chow, which delivers healthy bag lunches, vetted by a nutritionist, to K-8 students in the San Francisco Bay Area. Rob Feuerman, who started the service with his wife, Jamie, says that because parents pay for Kid Chow, it is not as accessible as he'd like. But there's hope: "We've gotten calls from schools all over for us to come and talk to them. They know it's important and want to do this," Feuerman says.

Older students are being better served, too. Collegians, who traditionally gain weight on calorific institutional food, are now gaining access to local, organic foods in dining halls at Oberlin, Middlebury, Stanford, Yale and other universities, as reported in the July 2004 E. Magazine.

Change doesn't always come easily, as shown by the recent defeat of Senator Harkin's proposal to set federal nutrition guidelines for foods sold in schools. "Junk food lobbyists like the Grocery Manufacturers of America and the National Soft Drink Association wield tremendous influence in Congress, and few legislators are willing to defy them," says Margo G. Wootan, nutrition policy director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). Senator Harkin, did, however, succeed in passing the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004, which will expand a fruit and vegetable program to reach 120,000 students in eight states and three Indian reservations.

What You Can Do

Get involved in your local school; make your voice heard as a parent or community member advocating fresh, healthy foods.

Resources

For parent how-to's see: "Seven Steps to Healthier Food," GG #102

Read about legislation on school lunches at: www.cspinet.com

For college programs see: www.foodsecurity.org/farm_to_college.html and www.foodroutes.org/farmtocollege.jsp

See also: fns.usda.gov/cnd/lunch/, www.kid-chow.com, www.emagazine.com