Food for Thought: Healthy Habits for Back-To-Schoolers and Beyond

As your kids return to the classroom this fall, are they being schooled in unhealthy eating? Here's how to protect their ability to learn by starting with a healthy diet and reducing exposures to brain-damaging toxins.

No More Junk

Kids are bombarded with advertising and tempted by junk food in school vending machines. Unhealthy lessons are learned early: French fries are the most commonly consumed vegetable for American kids ages 19 to 24 months. And U.S. rates of child and youth obesity have tripled in the last 40 years while type 2 diabetes among children has doubled in the last 10.

"To combat junk food ads, teach kids critical thinking about marketing," says Marion Nestle, Ph.D., author of What to Eat (North Point Press, 2006, $30). Set an example by keeping healthy foods, not junk foods, in the house and teaching kids where food comes from and how to cook it, says Nestle. If your child is a picky eater, regularly offer a variety of nutritious foods, and don't give up too soon. Persistence will win out.

In May, soda manufacturers agreed to remove high-calorie drinks from schools by the 2009-2010 school year, but three years is a long time. States and the federal government have been slow to set sound dietary guidelines for schools, says Margo G. Wootan, D.Sc., nutrition policy director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). Kentucky leads the nation with the strongest school nutrition policy, according to a recent CSPI survey, followed by Nevada, Arkansas, New Mexico, Alabama and California. To see what model schools are doing to provide healthier food, see "The Top 10 Green Schools in the U.S.: 2006."

What you can do

*Ask school officials to provide healthier food. For tips, see www.cspinet.org.

*Make sure kids get an hour's worth of activity daily.

*Use polyunsaturated vegetable oils, lowfat cheese, whole-grain breads and cereals, and offer seven to nine fruits and vegetable servings a day (see "Lean and Green," GG #108 and www.nutrition.gov).

*Reduce sweetened beverages and foods.

*Serve nonfat or lowfat milk to children age two and older.

*Eat oily fish, broiled or baked. For low-mercury species, see "Fish Picks SSC."

*Limit daily juice to a 4- to 6-ounce glass for children below seven; older kids can have two.