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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2010 > December > 16 > Entry
Editorial: Kids learn the wrong lesson in the lunch line
Feeding schoolchildren has been pretty much viewed as an afterthought for school districts. Looking at it as a chance to educate kids about eating well could mean more to their futures than any academic course, if the effort helps them live longer and healthier lives.
Most parents wouldn’t feed their children fat-filled and sugar-laden meals for lunch every day at home. But schools are the lunchtime equivalent of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” What you don’t know, though, about what your kids are eating can hurt them. Surrounded by temptation and unguided by adults, kids make bad choices.
That fact helps explain what is a certified obesity epidemic among children. While parents, teachers and politicians have spent decades fretting over curriculum and whether students’ academic experience will give kids a fair shot at a good future, there’s been little debate about what’s being fed to them.
Fast food is always easier and cheaper to prepare and sell. McDonald’s and other companies figured this out long ago. Likewise, school districts for decades now have asked their food-service departments to at least break even. The best way for them to do that is to offer kids the high-margin items they crave. The ramifications of doing that are serious.
Lunch could be a time to teach kids about healthy choices, an opportunity to reinforce the importance of eating well. If that meal were viewed as an educational opportunity, the incentives could be changed to encourage healthy eating. We don’t demand that classrooms turn a profit.
Thankfully, many school districts have begun to transition to healthier food. They’re replacing fried, fatty options with fruit and other healthy options, despite the higher cost.
Beavercreek is one of the districts leading the way locally. The nutrition department actively promotes healthy eating and puts the right kinds of foods on the lunch line. But there are cost and strategic challenges.
Consider apples. Canned applesauce is cheap, costing Beavercreek just 3 cents per serving, though crushed apples lose a lot of nutrients in processing. Healthier sliced apples, on the other hand, cost 25 cents per serving. Driving up the cost is the amount of handling required. A whole apple needs to be cored, sliced and packaged.
Packaging matters, says Connie Little, Beavercreek’s nutrition supervisor. Young kids with missing teeth and braces, for example, won’t eat a whole apple, but they will eat a package of sliced apples.
Recent federal laws expanding subsidized school lunch programs and encouraging healthier fare, and new state laws requiring schools to measure kids’ body mass index so the information can be used to encourage healthy habits are big steps in the right direction.
Other schools are modernizing their physical-education programs. Traditional game-playing activities like kickball and dodgeball are being replaced by real instruction in exercise. When kids leave school, they should be able to manage their own fitness programs and understand concepts like BMI, heart-rate tracking and cholesterol management.
Parents can help by asking tough questions of their schools about the approach to nutrition and asking school leaders to follow this trend.
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