I remember my first year teaching 7th graders. I had a class that met at 12pm, directly after lunch. The kids were bouncing off the walls ALL THE TIME! It became so bad, my favorite phrase that hour was "did they serve straight sugar at lunch today?" Of course, the kids would always answer yes. Walking through the lunchroom has given me a new perspective on the diets of our students. Pizza, cookies, muffins and sugary drinks dominate the plates. I find it sad, we actually have a chef at our school and I've broadened my horizons by sampling most of his new dishes.
Browns Mill Elementary School in Lithonia, Georgia has been sugar free for ten years. There are no desserts, no soft drinks and kids are actually requesting brocolli! Students spend the first hour of school eating healthy omelets and doing jumping jacks, exercising and dancing. Lunches include low-fat milk, tuna on wheat and peaches for dessert. In the first 6 months discipline incidents decreased by 23%, counseling referrals decreased by 30% and in the first year of reading scores increased by 15%. The sugar ban seems to correlate with better behavior, more focus and officials also saw a reduction in the BMI of some students.
Last week I blogged on the reduction of Physical Education time in schools and feel this issue piggy backs that topic. Students in the article actually responded that they felt the school was engraining healthy eating habits in them. Often times, in some of the poorer communities, school lunch is the best meal a student receives for the day. If it is filled with fried foods and pastries, this not only leads to obesity but can often times leave students feeling lethargic and sleepy leading to them paying less attention in school.
One of my favorite TV programs a few years ago was Shaq's Big Challenge. On the program, Shaq was helping a group of overweight kids to get healthy and eat better. The best part of the show, was when chef Tyler Florence came to the school and showed the kitchen staff how they could prepare a healthy meal for the children for just a couple bucks a day.
I feel it is important kids learn healthy habits from a young age. I feel this is why it is important we give them healthy options for meals and drinks and they be exposed to fitness based activities. I'd like to challenge all you teachers to try to incorporate more movement in your class, even if it is just a few minutes of stretching or jumping jacks and then see if you notice a difference in student behavior and attention.
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I have to say I am very proud of the position that my school district took a few years ago. Bismarck took a good hard look at its practices when schools across the country were mandated to develop a nutrition policy.
ReplyDeleteMost schools used the recommended format that was offered. BPS went a step further, outlined very specific nutritional values for all food served and banned the sale of carbonated or sweetened beverages (including but not limited to soda pop, sports drinks, and fruit drinks that are less than 100% juice). http://www.bismarckschools.org/uploads/resources/1069/rulejgcfr-.pdf
This made some people very angry and the district lost a lot of money from Pepsi and Coke contracts, but the school board believes children's health is more important. I agree!
Great topic, Jeff. All too often we think things like the ability to pay attention, stay focused, or even sit still are things kid can control if they only wanted too. We have to remember these kids are growing and their bodies need certain things to grow and think properly. All too often our students come to school with empty stomachs or with stomachs filled with Pop-tarts and Coca-Cola and it often affects them in ways they really can't control and I am so glad schools appear to be getting this. Your connection to the loss of phy ed time is also so relevant. These kids are being given poor materials by the shovelful and being deprived of the things - sleep, physical activity, and a proper diet - that they need to function. I think a national plan to increase physical activity and balance these kids diets would do far more good that 10 NCLB's.
ReplyDeleteThis past year my school was awarded a healthy snack grant. It was wonderful to see the kids eat broccoli, carrots, bananas, etc on a daily basis. They were even able to try new fruits occasionally. These healthy snacks had a great benefit on the behavior of the students. Prior to this year kids would eat a wide variety of snacks and now they all get the same healthy snack. Healthy food has a great determining factor on the student’s academic progress and ability to focus in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteChad
My school has a wellness policy as well. I'm not sure exactly how it is worded, but it did away with the pop machine and snack machine in the cafeteria. I think it's a good step in the right direction, but we haven't taken it far enough. I usually bring my own lunch but sometimes I go the cafeteria for breakfast. Some days it's really good like and egg sandwich. Other days the choice is caramel rolls, scones, jelly donuts, etc. The healthiest option those days are a nutrigrain bar. They are displayed among the chips ahoy and nutter butters. Is that a healthy breakfast?
ReplyDeleteI really liked the topic of your blog and found it to be very interesting. I now teach at the elementary level and had lunch duty for the first time this year. There were days were mozzarella sticks were on the menu and were served as part of the students lunch. Instead of the students receiving two, maybe three mozzarella sticks, they were given six. That is the size of an entire appetizer of mozzarella sticks. There were also days when the students received macaroni and cheese. The amount the students were given was ridiculous! We are talking about little third graders with other food on their trays and an amount of macaroni and cheese to serve two to three adults. Not only was this disgusting, but most of the time the kids did not finish it all and it ended up being a huge amount of wasted food. Another trend I’ve seen is every Thursday being nacho grande day. Students are fed nachos, mystery taco meat, a little lettuce and tomato, cheese, and sour cream. This also cannot be the healthiest food. Being I teach in a Title 1 School where all kids receive either a free or reduced lunch and for some, this is the largest and healthiest meal they receive all day, you would think that they would want to serve healthier food. We also have many referrals a day at this school and I think a sugar-free plan would help with referrals and also help with obesity. I have a lot of obese students at this school and once again it is thanks to Mom and Dad working three jobs to survive and the kids eating junk all of the time. I hope more schools plan to use this sugar-free plan. I think it would benefit the kids in their weight and in their academics.
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