What the Fork?

Study: Overhaul School Lunch in Oakland

Written by: Jesse Hirsch
February 114, 2012

School lunch reform is a hot-button national topic, with reformers like Michelle Obama and Alice Waters counterbalanced by budget cuts and Big Food lobbyists (the gang that successfully convinced the

USDA a thimbleful of pizza sauce is a vegetable). A comprehensive local study of the Oakland Unified School District’s lunch program was recently released, and it concluded that    it’s in dire need of an overhaul.

Every day, OUSD serves 37,000 meals, 6.6 million meals are served each year, and some students are fed five times a day (breakfast, lunch, early dinner, and two snacks). Key among the study’s findings was that the district’s kitchen facilities and equipment are woefully inadequate to keep up with this level of need.

For instance, the chief central kitchen at Prescott Elementary School was designed to prepare 8,000 meals a day, but it is currently preparing 20,000, well over twice its capabilities. Prescott is one of three off-site kitchens that prepare almost three-quarters of the district’s meals.

On a somewhat positive note, the study did find that the OUSD had exceeded the USDA’s dietary guidelines. However, as the federal policies themselves need to be reformed, the study suggests Oakland could still use a nutritional overhaul. In keeping with the beliefs of OUSD Nutrition Services Director Jennifer LeBarre, the report recommends cooking 60 percent of all meals from scratch, avoiding high-fructose corn syrup and trans fats, and sourcing produce organically and locally.

The study, a joint effort of the Center for Ecoliteracy and the Oakland Unified School District, was the result of more than a year of intensive analysis. Rather than focus on one small area of the district’s food system, “Rethinking School Lunch Oakland” took a holistic approach, reviewing ten components that provide a fairly thorough portrait: facilities, finances, food and health, wellness policy, teaching and learning, the dining experience, procurement, waste management, professional development, and marketing and communications.

LeBarre and the Center for Ecoliteracy presented the study to the Oakland school board, and are now hoping for some real-world change. First on their wishlist is the creation of a 44,000 square-foot central commissary; a facilities and equipment upgrade to create 17 from-scratch cooking kitchens; the designation of 14 “community kitchens” that can be used by outside groups after school hours; and the creation of a 1.5-acre farm to grow produce for the district.

LeBarre said initial feedback from the school board has been largely supportive, and OUSD superintendent Tony Smith has long been an advocate of school lunch reform. She said the proposed changes would be tied into the district’s facilities master plan.

Zenobia Barlow, executive director of the Center for Ecoliteracy, said this study was coincidentally well-timed, considering the current national focus on diabetes and the childhood obesity epidemic. “I’m kind of ambivalent about needing a diet-related epidemic to get something done,” she said. “Yet I can’t deny how exciting it is that we may be able to implement significant changes here.”

Jesse Hirsch Contact Information: Jesse.Hirsch@EastBayExpress.com.
East Bay Express
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/WhatTheFork/archives/2012/02/14/study-overhaul-school-lunch-in-oakland

Get Involved! (Part Two)

A healthy mind, physical state, emotional state, and overall well-being are important components to being able to learn at one's optimal level. Through the development that children undergo, it can be declared that healthier students are better learners. Healthier intake of food leads to healthier students, for I beleive "you are what you eat." A banana with essential nutritents, versus a Twinkie with additives and simple sugars, will indeed provide higher quality energy, such as, on the cellular and neurological level. 

The Healthier Schools Campaign advocates for policies and practices that allow all students, teachers and staff to learn and work in a healthy school environment. 

The Healthy School Campaign announces their education policy recommendations [pdf], specifically supporting reform for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Blue Ribbon Schools Program, on the website. They insist people to look and to read through their recommendations, and if your organization would like to show their support of education policy that promotes student health and wellness, Alex Schaible contact information is provided (via email or phone (312) 419.1810).

On the website you can download the policy recommendations and/or add your name to the petition.

What's on your plate?

Another great resource for advocacy and learning more about food politics and kids!!! Get involved and watch the trailor on the documentary film.

 http://www.whatsonyourplateproject.org/

For 31 million schoolchildren, the U.S. needs a solution for dealing with the unhealthy facts listed below.

• According to The Center for Disease Control, children born in the year 2000, one-third will contract diabetes. And, these children will be the first in our country’s history to die at a younger age than their parents.
• 70.1 percent of Americans are overweight; 4.3 million children ages 10 – 14 will become overweight or obese in the next 24 months.
• Rates of childhood obesity are soaring. About 12 percent of children ages 2 to 5 are obese compared with 17 percent of kids 6 to 11, and 18 percent of kids ages 12 to 19.^{i ii}
• “The number one thing any school can do to improve their school food is to add a healthy salad bar and allow children to make their own choices.” – Chef Ann Cooper, AKA The Renegade Lunch Lady and cofounder of The Lunch Box Project and Food, Family, Farming Foundation (F3)

Information provided by:

The Lunchbox: Healthy Tools to Help All Schools

Get Involved!

Advocacy is a political process by an individual or a large group of people which normally aims to influence public-policy and resource allocation decisions within political, economic, and social systems and institutions; it may be motivated from moral, ethical or faith principles or simply to protect an asset of interest.

Advocacy is a great way for community members to make an influence on an issue, such as improving the lunches within our schools across the state and across the nation. Parents, teachers, medical professionals, college students, etc. can definitely get involved and take the initiative to encourage our state legislatures.

A website that will be great to look at and guide you on the path of advocacy for better school lunches is:

http://www.thelunchbox.org/advocacy

New School Lunch Guidelines will mean some changes in Fayette County

From WKYT 27 News First
Reporter: Stacy Ellison
Posted: Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Link: Fresh is Best
 
In cafeterias across Fayette County you'll find salads, two fresh fruits and two canned fruits offered daily. Nutrition director, Michelle Coker, says Kentucky has been proactive in making school lunches healthier for kids.

"When I came 7 years ago, many of these practices were already in place", Coker says.
So new federal guidelines requiring lunchrooms to offer foods with less fat, less sodium, more whole grains, and more fruits and veggies won't mean big changes.

But one change will be made and it could mean big bucks for the Fayette County's nutrition budget. Starting next year, kids will have to take a fruit or vegetable when buying a school lunch. Now, it's optional.

Coker says, "If we have 800 kids eating we may have only prepared 500 servings of fruits and veggies knowing not everyone will take one. But now, if every child has to take it we've got to prepare 800 servings. And that's fine. But if kids aren't eating it and throwing it away we've got to do some education".

Coker says that education is already underway at the elementary level. Several programs are in place that teach students about healthy eating. In those schools, Coker says there is an increase in the number of kids taking and eating more fruits and vegetables. Similiar program will be implemented next year at the middle school and high school levels.

Coker understands offering healthy foods is one thing. Getting students to eat them is quite another. So ,along with the fruits, vegetables, and whole grains offered in cafeterias you will also find pizza and chips for sale. Coker says the key is finding a balance. The right combination of foods that provide a balanced diet and keep the budget balanced as well.

The new policy will be implemented at the beginning of the next school year. Schools will receive an additional 6 cents per meal in federal funding or adhering to the new guidelines.
The district will asses the cost of following the guidelines before the school year begins to determine if the costs of school lunches will be increased.

With a 16 million dollar school lunch budget in Fayette County, menu improvements will contribute to a 6 cent increase per meal, as well as, 5 cent increases per carton of 100% juice.

Fayette County is really trying to promote the benefits of healthy eating to the school children: Mind, Power, Energy, and Strength!

School Lunches to Blame?

Are school lunches partially to blame for childhood obesity?

In 2010, a study was done at the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor where 1,076

middle school students filled out questionnaires asking what they ate, how much physical activity they

got, and the number of hours they watched TV, played video games, and/or spent on the computer

each day.

The students were divided into three groups, depending on whether they said they "always," "almost always," or "sometimes" ate school lunches, "always," "almost always," or "sometimes" brought their lunch from home.

School Lunch (%) vs. Lunch From Home (%)

• More likely to be overweight or obese (38.2% vs. 24.7%) 
• More likely to eat two or more servings of fatty meats like fried chicken or hot dogs daily (6.2% vs. 1.6%)
• More likely to have two or more sugary drinks a day (19% vs. 6.8%)
• Less likely to eat at least two servings of fruits a day (32.6% vs. 49.4%)
• Less likely to eat at least two servings of vegetables a day (39.9% vs. 50.3%)
• Kids who bought school lunch had higher levels of LDL "bad" cholesterol

Also, the school-lunch kids were less likely to participate in active sports like basketball, moderate

exercise like walking, or team sports than the kids who brought their lunch from home. School-lunch

eaters spent more time watching TV, playing video games, and using computers outside of school.

The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology.

___________________________________________________________________________

It is vital that efforts are put forth to provide healthier choices on school lunch menus, as well as incorporating better education and involvement to teach kids to make healthy choices, in relation to

not only food but exercise too.

The middle school age is a great age to target these goals. Middle schoolers are at age where

independence starts coming into play. The choices these kids make will shape their eating and

exercise habits as they get older.