Just Precious

Ag. Secretary Vilsack: Parents and schools are responsible for teaching healthy choices

Last week I listened in on a call with US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, Alix from Med Nauseam Blog and several other bloggers from the SVMoms Group. Secretary Vilsack wanted to share his goals and plans to reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act with interested bloggers.

The call occured Wednesday morning (February 10), our first of a series of snow days. As the call began with a quick mention of Mrs. Obama’s Let’s Move! program, I smiled at my kids, doing anything but moving, as I downloaded Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs on my DVR. The irony, I thought, as I learned that the goal of the program was to enforce children’s fitness, requiring 60 minutes of movement per day, and not just by way of PE and recess. Secretary Vilsack expressed that the First Lady recognizes that this will require bringing back recess and Phys Ed into the school plans as we learn more with our minds when our bodies have exercised. I nodded in agreement as I listened to him share that our country needs to design our schools and communities  to allow for more movement and exercise, which includes bringing recess and physical education back into the school days.

Which led us to the purpose of his call, to educate the public of the goals of the reauthorization, which requests the government to supply $10 Billion in 10 years for its program. The reauthorization focuses on bringing healthier foods into schools by way of breakfasts and lunches, and to teach families and children to make healthier eating choices. We heard a lot of statistics (did you know that 102,000 students receive free or reduced lunches and 88,000 receive free or reduced breakfasts in our nation’s public schools? That 1/3 of America’s youngsters are obese or overweight?)

We learned that the Institute of Medicine recently studied school lunches to find that public school cafeterias offer too much sugar, fat and sodium, and too few dark orange and dark green vegetables. They also found that there are not enough multigrains available in the breads and pastas that are served, and that dairy foods are much lower than they should be for healthy eating. The IOM suggested an improvement of food quality.

Of course, anyone who has eaten in a school cafteria could tell you that.   A local school system offers a second choice meal each day, and that meal is often a hot dog or other processed, fatty food. Our schools cafeteria’s aren’t allowing for healthy choices. In fact, the offerings deserve a big fat F-rating. They’re failing our children.

But so is health education. American’s don’t have easy information to teach to their children, and schools, many of which have cut health programs from their curriculum aren’t being given the means nor the opportunity to teach healthy eating and healthy food choices.

Of course, none of this is the Secretary’s goal. Just like you and me, he’d like to see our children having better choices, and have the opportunity and knowledge to  make those choices. And then there’s the big problem. The problem that there always is, anytime we talk “radical” ideas in education: funding, budgeting and spending choices.

What many American’s don’t realize is that we do have a say in how our public school dollars are spent. In 2001, I watched the district where I taught toss their health and swimming* curriculae. The school district explained that the health lesson could be taught in the Science curriclum. As a member of  the curriculum writing committee, I studied the curriculum and no where were the basics of the health curriculum taught in grades K-6.  Appalled, I sent e-mails and wrote letters. I addressed it with the parents in my classroom. As 1 teacher of 24 students, I didn’t know what I do now. I now have a greater understanding that a little voice can have a big one, if you put your resources to work.

Parents, community members, it’s our jobs to persuade school boards to include in the curriculum values of healthy eating, as well as provide healthier foods. Its our duty to team-up with our schools to learn how to incorporate those healthy choices at home and to ensure they are followed at school. Of course, that will mean we need the ability to offer the healthy choices in our schools. For that, the school boards will need to take a good look at the funding in their schools and make sure they offer resources to teach and provide healthy eating. They also must recognize that physical education and movement is just as important as math and science.

In the next few weeks, I’ll be running a series of posts highlighting healthy eating lessons that parents and teachers can use to teach their children, and learn together. I’ll also ltake a look at how communities can best encourage their school boards to ensure healthy options are in their school cafeterias.

Our country’s children are suffering from unhealthy eating. They can’t make good choices without the inforamtion and opportunities presented. Its up to us: parents, community members, families and educators to ensure our children will learn the healthy way to live. And to learn.

*We were informed that swimmimg skills weren’t a necessity to be taught to 4th grade students, though I can attest to 2 of my 24 students that year who were fearful non-swimmers learning valuable self-saving techniques.

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