Healthy Schools Campaign

The Intersection of Hunger, Obesity and School Food

By Mark Bishop, Deputy Director

Discussions about the importance of school food frequently focus on two major issues: hunger (or food insecurity) and obesity. Usually, these two issues are considered to be opposing forces --  the argument goes that in a world of limited resources, you either support better access to food to address hunger, or you support better quality of food to address childhood obesity.

At HSC, we have always felt that this is division is simply not accurate; now another new study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association supports our slightly different perception of the issues.

So what's the connection? According to Elizabeth Metallinos-Katsaras, associate professor in the School for Health Sciences at Simmons College in Boston, “The findings of this study suggest that HFInsec is associated with overweight prevalence in low income ethnically and racially diverse girls. Age and sex, however, appear to modify both the magnitude and the directionality of the association."

In other (and more simple) words: for the most part, children in food deserts have higher rates of obesity. Kids who are at risk of hunger are often also at risk of obesity.

As Rochelle said so well last January,

We know that healthy food is more expensive and unavailable in many low-income communities. Since low-income students are participating in the federal school food programs, this only underscores the need for higher nutritional standards and adequate funding for these programs. It is essential that all children have access to healthy food that will help meet their nutritional needs and give them the energy to learn and succeed in school.

Interestingly, a recent guest editorial in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Adam Drewnowski, director of the Center for Obesity Research and Nutritional Science Program at the University of Washington, underscores this point about what he calls the “dual burden of undernutrition and overweight.” He focuses on the fact that health food is more expensive and that the “the key predictor of weight gain may not turn out to be sugar or fat, but simply low diet cost.”

These points are still very true. The new research only adds further support to the point.

So what can we do? It goes back to providing increased funding for better school food while working to decrease barriers to participation. The Child Nutrition Act, which was up for reauthorization this fall and has now been extended until fall of 2010, Congress has the opportunity to provide the more money that schools need for better food. You can learn more and take action here.

USDA Shifting Toward Healthier Commodities Program for School Meals

By Mark Bishop, HSC Deputy Director

Earlier this month, I participated in a U.S. Senate briefing on improving the nutritional quality of school commodity foods. Ensuring healthy commodities is an important component of a healthy and properly funded school meal program.

First a bit of a background on commodity foods. . .

The USDA runs the Commodity Foods Program, which essentially provides schools agricultural products -- both whole and processed foods. The availability of this food can often make the difference between a program that loses or makes money by providing about 15 to 20 percent of the food items for a lunch menu. At the same time, this program has also been criticized for distributing unhealthful processed foods and low-quality proteins.

However, things have changed at the USDA, and their commodity food offerings are getting better. Currently the program is offering low-fat cheeses, lean meats and bread products that are whole grain. And they are committed to bringing more and healthier options to their listing of available food items.

One day prior to this briefing, Senator Blanche Lincoln, chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, introduced S1650, a bill to improve the purchase and processing of healthful commodities for use in school meal programs. This bill would essentially put into law the healthful improvements that the USDA has been making. We believe that this should and will become an important part of the discussion around the Child Nutrition Act.

The briefing was sponsored by Senator Lincoln and organized by the National Alliance for Nutrition and Activity (NANA) and the Center for Science in the Public Interest. As a NANA partner, we were excited about the well-attended briefing and the changes this means for school food.

Thank you to NANA and Senator Lincoln for their leadership on this issue.

And if you're interested in improving school food, support HSC's efforts to bring healthier options to the table. Our annual Cooking Up Change healthy cooking contest puts the task of creating a healthy menu in the hands of student chefs, who always cook up healthy, tasty options while exceeding USDA guidelines on a very, very tight budget. Imagine what they -- and our school food service providers across the nation -- could do with more money for better food.

Frozen Fruits & Veggies Provide Healthy Options for School Meals

By Rochelle Davis, HSC Founding Executive Director

New research reported in the International Supermarket News says that frozen food can be nutritionally equal – or even superior – to fresh produce:

The search for new and improved school meals has revealed that a mix of fresh and frozen foods creates the optimum result in terms of healthy eating and production.

Fresh produce can deteriorate along the supply chain, as the journey from the field to the shelf can seriously compromise the nutritional value and quality of fresh produce due to exposure. But frozen food's freshness is maintained by the temperature at which it is kept. There are also benefits in that frozen products are cheaper, create less waste and are more accessible to institutions such as schools.

Our experience in Chicago certainly confirms that. Last year the Chicago Public Schools and its partner Chartwells-Thompson Hospitality launched a frozen local program to take regionally produced fruits and vegetables and, within 24 hours of harvest, flash freeze them for serving all year in CPS school meals.

In an article at FamilyFarmed.org, Chartwells Thompson Regional Vice President Bob Bloomer says: "This is a great way to lock in the nutrients of these fruits and vegetables... We will be purchasing thousands of pounds of these products this school year. The kids love it."

A Special Morning Treat II: Chocolate Chip Banana Pancakes

By Mark Bishop, Deputy Director

Who can say no to the smile you get when you give a kid a chocolate chip pancake?

Well, we make pancakes semi-frequently. But I didn't know when I started using the Trader Joe's Multi-Grain Pancake Mix that there were fans out there. And I'll agree, it's good. Easy to make, you can actually read the ingredients, and it's super kid friendly. Plus with a little assistance, it's fun to make.


I love doctoring these types of things up. Adding bananas, spices and chocolate chips. And it does turn it into a special treat. Any other ideas out there for personalized pancake breakfasts?

Reason #157 to Better Fund School Lunches: We Shouldn't Have to Chose Between Health and Education

By Mark Bishop, Deputy Director

Recently in The New York Times, there was a sobering article about the current state of school funding. It was a story of school cutbacks, increasing classroom sizes, job losses, people being thankful for taking pay cuts. It didn't paint a good picture for the health of our school system, let alone the state of school health. And the punchline was that without the stimulus funding, it would have been significantly worse.

But the line that caught my interest was a small point near the bottom of the article...

About half of the 160 school superintendents from 37 states surveyed [pdf] by the American Association of School Administrators said that despite receiving stimulus money, they were forced to cut teachers in core subjects. Eight out of 10 said they had cut librarians, nurses, cooks and bus drivers.

My observation -- assuming that this survey is representative of schools in general -- is that it's the non-core staff who often bear the brunt of an economic downturn. While many schools are indeed eliminating teaching jobs, even more schools are eliminating even more jobs in other areas. When schools are losing money, it's health, nutrition and maintenance that lose out the most.

Health and nutrition services (beyond federal reimbursements) are being funded through the same dollars that provide education to our students. So particularly in a large urban district that has higher levels of poverty, a loss of money in a school food program has to be covered from a school's general revenue.

And if health has to compete with education, no one wins.

How can any administrator decide between cutting healthy food for kids and laying off teachers? There is no correct answer. The setup is just not right. It's not a question any school leader should have to ask.

I don't know what the answer is for health services, or bus drivers or facility maintenance, but I do know that properly funding the Child Nutrition Act at a level that enables schools to provide healthy meals will help schools that rely heavily on federal reimbursements avoid asking these impossible questions and watching children suffer no matter which answer they chose.

Imagine a school principal who doesn't have to worry about the school food service program losing money and draining their education dollars. This takes the pressure off of food programs and allows them to innovate and create healthy meals that don't rely on junk food to make up for lost revenue. 

While fully funding the school lunch program won't fix the school funding problem, it will go a long way toward ensuring that our kids have healthy meals -- even in times of financial stress and without draining dollars away from education. So with this year's reauthorization coming up, we have an opportunity to make real, lasting change.

A Special Morning Treat: Chocolate Banana Smoothies

By Mark Bishop, Deputy Director

So we've been making chocolate smoothies for Henry for awhile. We've been using cocoa powder with some honey, vanilla, milk and frozen fruit. It worked fine, but it was a pain at times and -- to be totally honest -- it wasn't always that delicious. So my wife Jill broke down and purchased Trader Joe's Midnight Moo Chocolate Syrup, which is basically organic chocolate syrup and no corn syrup. It's tasty. (It's sugar and flavor - what kid wouldn't love it?) And it sure is easier than mixing my own from scratch.

Henry loves it.

As a special sometimes treat, we'll make something like this morning's banana chocolate smoothie. And using the frozen fruit allows you to use a lot less sugar.

One cup of milk
One frozen banana
1 to 2 teaspoons of chocolate syrup

Blend. Enjoy.

Henry did.

How The White House Garden Grows

By Rochelle Davis, Founding Executive Director

We at HSC have been very excited to have First Lady Michelle Obama make the food we eat, and how it is grown, part of the national dialogue. Much has been said about the new White House garden. Now, the White House has released a video about the garden. 

As Michelle says at the end of the video, “I hope the garden will be an introduction to a new way for our country to think about food.”   We look forward to her leadership as Congress begins to consider the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, the bill that determine the funding and other guidelines for the federal school food programs.

Improving School Lunch from the Top Down: New Momentum, Significant Policy Shift

By Mark Bishop, Deputy Director

Since HSC began working on school food programs, we've never seen such dramatic shift in policy on school nutrition -- and it's exciting to not only watch it unfold, but to be part of the movement.

Straight from the top, President Obama and the First Lady are active supporters of improving school food. This is a new experience for us -- having support from the leaders of the free world, that is.

But possibly even more dramatic are the changes that we're seeing at the USDA.

Remember, the USDA has been labeled by some advocates as part of the problem, not the solution. Historically, the USDA has been viewed as the agency that uses schools as a dumping ground for cheap commodity products. But I think this is changing. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan just sent out a memo that "details how to use USDA funding for the kind of projects that are being developed by First Lady Michelle Obama and her food policy team, such as school lunch infrastructure, farmers markets, farm to school programs, cooking classes."

The pieces for school food reform are falling into place. Advocates are lining up to support change, including the School Nutrition Association, Slow Food USA, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and more.

And now our top policy leaders are now even coordinating their lead: 

For the first time, we're beginning to get a glimpse of what could be accomplished if the goals and initiatives of the USDA and the East Wing and the West Wing really are integrated. And while a complete paradigm shift will also require private initiatives, especially for school lunch changes... this is an unprecedented move on the part of USDA to support real transformation... by focusing its resources. Seven short months ago, Merrigan's memo was almost unimaginable. Today, it was released to little fanfare...proof of how far we've rapidly gone in the paradigm shift.

Now, I agree that there is a need for private initiatives for a complete paradigm shift, but that's not all we need. For real transformation we also need to get a broad base of support for change. Getting a new federal school lunch program may cost billions of dollars -- and that's not an easy sell in this economic environment, even with support from the top. So we need to hear the voices of the parents, students, teachers, and community members that tell our political leaders this is an investment in our kids, our health and our future.

Our top leaders have started making the changes to support our kids. Now it's our turn to keep it going.

For Kids' Health, Prevention Work(s)!

By Amanda Chablani, HSC policy specialist 

HSC parent wellness summit, May 2009

HSC was gratified to see leaders from six influential foundations and health-care organizations release an open letter calling for disease prevention to be a central part of health care reform.

As an organization that promotes prevention in schools, we couldn’t agree more.

As their letter explains [PDF], “Place -- where one lives, works, goes to school, and plays -- impacts health in profound ways” and “reducing toxins, ensuring access to healthy foods, providing safe places for physical activity, creating healthy and safe homes and workplaces all have substantial bodies of research documenting their effectiveness.”

Here at HSC, we’re working hard to make sure that students have this type of safe place to learn and play at school. To us, this means offering fresh, healthy food, ample opportunities for physical activity, an environment free of potentially harmful chemicals and access to health services to address the health needs that arise when children are at school. To make this vision a reality, we work on numerous programs and policies including:

• We support the Chicago Public Schools’ ongoing efforts to significantly alter its menu by adding more fresh fruits and vegetables, removing trans fats, eliminating deep fryers in schools and much more.

• We support a strong reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act to increase funding so schools around the country can also have healthier menus.

• We work with schools, manufacturers, distributors, local authorities and state governments to promote green cleaning, thereby reducing toxins in the school environment.

• We support efforts to secure funding for green, high-performing school buildings and green renovation of existing school buildings.

• We help principals find time for recess, and we support efforts, such as the FIT Kids Act, to recognize physical education as an essential part of the school day.

• We provide leadership skills to school nurses to help them promote school health. We support establishing a school nurse ratio so students have access to a school nurse at every school.

Schools are key places to put our nation’s prevention goals into practice. As the letter from these influential leaders makes clear, “Over time a focus on community prevention will improve health, save money, reduce the demands on our health system, and most important, it will lead to a nation of healthier people and healthier places to live.”

We believe that’s something everyone can agree on.

Fit Kids Scoring on Academics

By Mark Bishop, Deputy Director

In a study that alters my perception of my childhood, researchers say it seems that physically fit students students post higher academic scores than less-fit peers. Put another way, it's no longer the geek who shall inherit the earth. According to the study:

To examine the correlation between physical fitness and academic performance, researchers reviewed the academic and fitness records of students attending kindergarten through eighth grade in New York City public school who participated in the New York City FITNESSGRAM, a standards-based fitness curriculum and assessment. The researchers found that scores on standardized English language arts and math tests increased accordingly with higher FITNESSGRAM assessment scores for all racial and ethnic groups.

One of the problems that we see in schools is that the current focus on testing has reduced time and resources devoted to non-core school programming. So many important elements of a healthful school environment are cut -- including PE, nutrition programs, maintenance -- and the list goes on.

While it's helpful to have more and more research showing that better health means better education, what would be even more helpful is to start directing resources to expand health promotion programs.We know that healthy kids are better learners. Now it's time to start putting that knowledge into practice.

Maybe what we need is a new learning index that goes beyond just math and English and also includes physical education, nutrition, even the quality of the school building. By looking at developing the whole child, maybe we can then take steps to really improve our academic outcomes.